- 


GEORGE   DU   MAURIER 
From  ,in  unpublished  photograph  by  I'radelle  and  Youngf,  London. 


SOCIAL 
PICTORIAL 
S  AT  I  R  E 

Reminiscences  and  Apprecia- 
tions of  English  Illustrators 
of  the  Past  Generation.  By 
GEORGE  DU  MAURIER 

WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS 


BY  GEORGE  DU  MAURIER. 


PETER  IBBETSON.     Illustrated.     Post  8vo,  Cloth, 

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Copyright,  1898,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  rtitrvtd. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


GEORGE  DU   MAURIER Frontispiece 

JOHN  LEECH Facing  p.  6 

A  SPECIMEN  OF  PLUCK "  IO 

ONE  OF  MR.  BRIGGS'S  ADVENTURES 

IN  THE  HIGHLANDS "  14 

MR.  AND  MRS.  CAUDLE "  22 

"IN  THE  BAY  OF  BISCAY  O1'  .  .  .  "  26 

"  THE  JOLLY  LITTLE  STREET  ARABS  "  "  32 
THANK  GOODNESS  !  FLY-FISHING  HAS 

BEGUN! "  38 

DOING  A  LITTLE  BUSINESS  ....  "  42 

A  TOLERABLY  BROAD  HINT  .  ...  "  46 

CHARLES  KEENE "  54 

THE  SNOWSTORM,  JAN.  2,  1867  .  .  "  58 

WAITING  FOR  THE  LANDLORD!  .  .  "  62 

"NONE  O'  YOUR  LARKS "  ....  "  68 

A  STROKE  OF  BUSINESS "  72 

AN  AFFRONT  TO  THE  SERVICE  .  .  "  78 


iv  ILLUSTRATIONS 

"NOT  UP  TO  HIS  BUSINESS"    .      .      .      Facing  p.     82 

FELINE  AMENITIES 84 

A  PICTORIAL  PUZZLE "            88 

THE  NEW   SOCIETY   CRAZE    ....  "            QO 

"READING  WITHOUT  TEARS"  ...  Q2 

REFINEMENTS  OF  MODERN   SPEECH    .  "            94 
THINGS  ONE  WOULD  WISH  TO    HAVE 

EXPRESSED  DIFFERENTLY       ...  "            96 

THE  HEIGHT  OF  IMPROPRIETY       .      .  "            98 


SOCIAL  PICTORIAL  SATIRE 


SOCIAL  PICTORIAL  SATIRE 


IT  is  my  purpose  to  speak  of  the 
craft  to  which  I  have  devoted  the  best 
years  of  my  life,  the  craft  of  portraying, 
by  means  of  little  pen-and-ink  strokes, 
lines  and  scratches,  a  small  portion  of 
the  world  in  which  we  live ;  such  social 
and  domestic  incidents  as  lend  them- 
selves to  humorous  or  satirical  treat- 
ment; the  illustrated  criticism  of  life, 
of  the  life  of  our  time  and  country,  in 
its  lighter  aspects. 

The  fact  that  I  have  spent  so  many 
years  in  the  practice  of  this  craft  does 
not  of  itself,  I  am  well  aware,  entitle 
me  to  lay  down  the  law  about  it;  the 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

mere  exercise  of  an  art  so  patent  to  all, 
so  easily  understanded  of  the  people, 
does  not  give  one  any  special  insight 
into  its  simple  mysteries,  beyond  a  cer- 
tain perception  and  appreciation  of  the 
technical  means  by  which  it  is  pro- 
duced— unless  one  is  gifted  with  the 
critical  faculty,  a  gift  apart,  to  the  pos- 
session of  which  I  make  no  claim. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  critics  of  such 
work  as  ours.  First  there  is  the  wide 
public  for  whom  we  work  and  by  whom 
we  are  paid  ;  "  who  lives  to  please  must 
please  to  live ;"  and  who  lives  by  draw- 
ing for  a  comic  periodical  must  man- 
age to  please  the  greater  number.  The 
judgment  of  this  critic,  though  often 
sound,  is  not  infallible ;  but  his  verdict 
for  the  time  being  is  final,  and  by  it  we, 
who  live  by  our  wits  and  from  hand  to 
mouth,  must  either  stand  or  fall. 

The  other  critic  is  the  expert,  our  fel- 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

low-craftsman,  who  has  learned  by  initia- 
tion, apprenticeship,  and  long  practice 
the  simple  secrets  of  our  common  trade. 
He  is  not  quite  infallible  either,  and  is 
apt  to  concern  himself  more  about  the 
manner  than  the  matter  of  our  perform- 
ance; nor  is  he  of  immediate  importance, 
since  with  the  public  on  our  side  we  can 
do  without  him  for  a  while,  and  flourish 
like  a  green  bay-tree  in  spite  of  his  artistic 
disapproval  of  our  work ;  but  he  is  not  to 
be  despised,  for  he  is  some  years  in  ad- 
vance of  that  other  critic,  the  public,  who 
may,  and  probably  will,  come  round  to 
his  way  of  thinking  in  time. 

The  first  of  these  two  critics  is  typified 
by  Moliere's  famous  cook,  who  must 
have  been  a  singularly  honest,  indepen- 
dent, and  intelligent  person,  since  he 
chose  in  all  cases  to  abide  by  her  deci- 
sion, and  not  with  an  altogether  unsatis- 
factory result  to  Mankind !  Such  cooks 
3 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

are  not  to  be  found  in  these  days — cer- 
tainly not  in  England ;  but  he  is  an  un- 
lucky craftsman  who  does  not  possess 
some  such  natural  critics  in  his  family, 
his  home,  or  near  it  —  mother,  sister, 
friend,  wife,  or  child — who  will  look  over 
his  shoulder  at  his  little  sketch,  and  say : 

"  Tommy  [or  Papa,  or  Grandpapa,  as 
the  case  may  be],  that  person  you've 
just  drawn  doesn't  look  quite  natural," 
or: 

"  That  lady  is  not  properly  dressed  for 
the  person  you  want  her  to  be  —  those 
hats  are  not  worn  this  year,"  and  so 
forth  and  so  forth. 

When  you  have  thoroughly  satisfied 
this  household  critic,  then  is  the  time  to 
show  some  handy  brother  craftsman 
your  amended  work,  and  listen  grateful- 
ly when  he  suggests  that  you  should  put 
a  tone  on  this  wall,  and  a  tree,  or  some- 
thing, in  the  left  middle  distance  to 
4 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

balance  the  composition ;  and  raise  or 
depress  the  horizon-line  to  get  a  better 
effect  of  perspective. 

In  speaking  of  some  of  my  fellow-art- 
ists on  Punch,  and  of  their  work,  I  shall 
try  and  bring  both  these  critical  meth- 
ods into  play — premising,  however,  once 
for  all,  that  such  criticism  on  my  part  is 
simply  the  expression  of  my  individual 
taste  or  fancy,  the  taste  or  fancy  of  one 
who  by  no  means  pretends  to  the  un- 
erring acumen  of  Moliere's  cook,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  who  feels  himself  by  no 
means  infallible  in  his  judgment  of  pure- 
ly technical  matters,  on  the  other.  I  can 
only  admire  and  say  why,  or  why  I 
don't;  and  if  I  fail  in  making  you  ad- 
mire and  disadmire  with  me,  it  will 
most  likely  be  my  fault  as  well  as  my 
misfortune. 

I  had  originally  proposed  to  treat  of 
Richard  Doyle,  John  Leech,  and  Charles 
5 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

Keene — and  finally  of  myself,  since  that 
I  should  speak  of  myself  was  rather  in- 
sisted upon  by  those  who  procured  me 
the  honor  of  speaking  at  all.  I  find, 
however,  that  there  is  so  much  to  say 
about  Leech  and  Keene  that  I  have 
thought  it  better  to  sacrifice  Richard 
Doyle,  who  belongs  to  a  remoter  period, 
and  whose  work,  exquisite  as  it  is  of  its 
kind,  is  so  much  slighter  than  theirs, 
and  fills  so  much  less  of  the  public  eye ; 
for  his  connection  with  Punch  did  not 
last  long.  Moreover,  personally  I  knew 
less  of  him ;  just  enough  to  find  that  to 
know  was  to  love  him — a  happy  peculi- 
arity he  shared  with  his  two  great  col- 
laborators on  Punch. 

John  Leech  !  What  a  name  that  was 
to  conjure  with,  and  is  still ! 

I  cannot  find  words  to  express  what  it 
represented  to  me  of  pure  unmixed  de- 
light in  my  youth  and  boyhood,  long 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

before  I  ever  dreamed  of  being  an  artist 
myself !  It  stands  out  of  the  past  with 
such  names  as  Dickens,  Dumas,  Byron 
— not  indeed  that  I  am  claiming  for  him 
an  equal  rank  with  those  immortals,  who 
wielded  a  weapon  so  much  more  potent 
than  a  mere  caricaturist's  pencil !  But 
if  an  artist's  fame  is  to  be  measured  by 
the  mere  quantity  and  quality  of  the 
pleasure  he  has  given,  what  pinnacle  is 
too  high  for  John  Leech ! 

Other  men  have  drawn  better;  deeper, 
grander,  nobler,  more  poetical  themes 
have  employed  more  accomplished  pen- 
cils, even  in  black  and  white;  but  for 
making  one  glad,  I  can  think  of  no  one 
to  beat  him. 

To  be  an  apparently  hopeless  invalid 
at  Christmas-time  in  some  dreary,  de- 
serted, dismal  little  Flemish  town  and  to 
receive  Puncfts  Almanac  (for  1^58,  let  us 
say)  from  some  good-natured  friend  in 
7 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

England — that  is  a  thing  not  to  be  for- 
gotten! I  little  dreamed  then  that  I 
should  come  to  London  again,  and  meet 
John  Leech  and  become  his  friend ;  that 
I  should  be,  alas !  the  last  man  to  shake 
hands  with  him  before  his  death  (as  I 
believe  I  was),  and  find  myself  among 
the  officially  invited  mourners  by  his 
grave ;  and,  finally,  that  I  should  inherit, 
and  fill  for  so  many  years  (however  in- 
differently), that  half-page  in  Punch  op- 
posite the  political  cartoon,  and  which 
I  had  loved  so  well  when  he  was  the 
artist ! 

Well,  I  recovered  from  a  long  and  dis- 
tressing ailment  of  my  sight  which  had 
been  pronounced  incurable,  and  came  to 
England,  where  I  was  introduced  to 
Charles  Keene,  with  whom  I  quickly 
became  intimate,  and  it  was  he  who  pre- 
sented me  to  Leech  one  night  at  one 
of  Mr.  Arthur  Lewis's  smoking  concerts, 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

in  the  winter  of  1860.  I  remember  feel- 
ing somewhat  nervous  lest  he  should 
take  me  for  a  foreigner  on  account  of 
my  name,  and  rather  unnecessarily  went 
out  of  my  way  to  assure  him  that  I  was 
rather  more  English  than  John  Bull  him- 
self. It  didn't  matter  in  the  least;  I 
have  no  doubt  he  saw  through  it  all ;  he 
was  kindness  and  courtesy  itself ;  and  I 
experienced  to  the  full  that  emotion  so 
delightful  to  a  young  hero-worshipper 
in  meeting  face  to  face  a  world-wide 
celebrity  whom  he  has  long  worshipped 
at  a  distance.  In  the  words  of  Lord 

Tennyson : 

"  I  was  rapt 

By  all  the  sweet  and  sudden  passion  of  youth 
Towards  greatness  in  its  elder."  .  .  . 

But  it  so  happened  at  just  this  particular 
period  of  his  artistic  career  and  of  mine 
that  he  no  longer  shone  as  a  solitary 
star  of  the  first  magnitude  in  my  little 
9 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

firmament  of  pictorial  social  satire.  A 
new  impulse  had  been  given  to  the  art 
of  drawing  on  wood,  a  new  school  had 
been  founded,  and  new  methods  —  to 
draw  straight  from  nature  instead  of 
trusting  to  memory  and  imagination — 
had  been  the  artistic  order  of  the  day. 
Men  and  women,  horses  and  dogs,  land- 
scapes and  seascapes,  all  one  can  make 
pictures  of,  even  chairs  and  tables  and 
teacups  and  saucers,  must  be  studied 
from  the  life — from  the  still-life,  if  you 
will  —  by  whoever  aspired  to  draw  on 
wood;  even  angels  and  demons  and 
cherubs  and  centaurs  and  mermaids  must 
be  closely  imitated  from  nature — or  at 
least  as  much  of  them  as  could  be  got 
from  the  living  model. 

Once  a  Week  had  just  appeared,  and 
The  Cornhill  Magazine.  Sir  John  Mil- 
lais  and  Sir  Frederick  Leighton  were 
then  drawing  on  wood  just  like  the  or- 

10 


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SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

dinary  mortals;  Frederick  Walker  had 
just  started  on  his  brief  but  splendid 
career;  Frederick  Sandys  had  burst  on 
the  black-and-white  world  like  a  meteor ; 
and  Charles  Keene,  who  was  illustrating 
the  Cloister  and  the  Hearth  in  the  inter- 
vals of  his  Punch  work,  had,  after  long 
and  patient  labor,  attained  that  consum- 
mate mastery  of  line  and  effect  in  wood 
draughtsmanship  that  will  be  forever 
associated  with  his  name ;  and  his  work 
in  Punch,  if  only  by  virtue  of  its  extraor- 
dinary technical  ability,  made  Leech's 
by  contrast  appear  slight  and  almost 
amateurish  in  spite  of  its  ease  and  bold- 
ness. 

So  that  with  all  my  admiration  for 
Leech  it  was  at  the  feet  of  Charles 
Keene  that  I  found  myself  sitting;  be- 
sides which  we  were  much  together  in 
those  days,  talking  endless  shop,  taking 
long  walks,  riding  side  by  side  on  the 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

knife-boards  of  omnibuses,  dining  at 
cheap  restaurants,  making  music  at  each 
other's  studios.  His  personal  charm  was 
great,  as  great  in  its  way  as  Leech's ;  he 
was  democratic  and  so  was  I,  as  one  is 
bound  to  be  when  one  is  impecunious 
and  the  world  is  one's  oyster  to  open 
with  the  fragile  point  of  a  lead-pencil. 
His  bohemian  world  was  mine  —  and  I 
found  it  a  very  good  world  and  very 
much  to  my  taste  —  a  clear,  honest, 
wholesome,  innocent,  intellectual,  and 
most  industrious  British  bohemia,  with 
lots  of  tobacco,  lots  of  good  music, 
plenty  of  talk  about  literature  and  art, 
and  not  too  much  victuals  or  drink. 
Many  of  its  denizens,  that  were,  have 
become  Royal  Academicians  or  have 
risen  to  fame  in  other  ways ;  some  have 
had  to  take  a  back  seat  in  life;  surpris- 
ingly few  have  gone  to  the  bad. 

This  world,  naturally,  was  not  Leech's, 

12 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

if  it  had  ever  been,  I  doubt ;  his  bohemia, 
if  he  ever  had  lived  in  one,  had  been  the 
bohemia  of  medicine,  not  of  art,  and  he 
seemed  to  us  then  to  be  living  on  social 
heights  of  fame  and  sport  and  aristo- 
cratic splendor  where  none  of  us  dreamed 
of  seeking  him — and  he  did  not  seek  us. 
We  hated  and  despised  the  bloated  aris- 
tocracy, just  as  he  hated  and  despised 
foreigners  without  knowing  much  about 
them ;  and  the  aristocracy,  to  do  it  jus- 
tice, did  not  pester  us  with  its  obtrusive 
advances.  But  I  never  heard  Leech 
spoken  of  otherwise  in  bohemia  than 
with  affectionate  admiration,  although 
many  of  us  seemed  to  think  that  his  best 
work  was  done.  Indeed,  his  work  was 
becoming  somewhat  fitful  in  quality,  and 
already  showed  occasional  signs  of  haste 
and  illness  and  fatigue;  his  fun  was  less 
genial  and  happy,  though  he  drew  more 
vigorously  than  ever,  and  now  and  again 
13 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

surprised  us  by  surpassing  himself,  as  in 
his  series  of  Briggs  in  the  Highlands  a- 
chasing  the  deer. 

All  that  was  thirty  years  ago  and 
more.  I  may  say  at  once  that  I  have 
reconsidered  the  opinion  I  formed  of 
John  Leech  at  that  time.  Leech,  it  is 
true,  is  by  no  means  the  one  bright  par- 
ticular star,  but  he  has  recovered  much 
of  his  lost  first  magnitude ;  if  he  shines 
more  by  what  he  has  to  say  than  by  his 
manner  of  saying  it,  I  have  come  to 
think  that  that  is  the  best  thing  of  the 
two  to  shine  by,  if  you  cannot  shine  by 
both ;  and  I  find  that  his  manner  was 
absolutely  what  it  should  have  been  for 
his  purpose  and  his  time — neither  more 
nor  less ;  he  had  so  much  to  say  and  of 
a  kind  so  delightful  that  I  have  no 
time  to  pick  holes  in  his  mode  of  ex- 
pression, which  at  its  best  has  satisfied 
far  more  discriminating  experts  than  I ; 
14 


HEj 


s     a 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

besides  which,  the  methods  of  printing 
and  engraving  have  wonderfully  im- 
proved since  his  day.  He  drew  straight 
on  the  wood  block,  with  a  lead-pencil ; 
his  delicate  gray  lines  had  to  be  trans- 
lated into  the  uncompromising  coarse 
black  lines  of  printers'  ink  —  a  ruinous 
process ;  and  what  his  work  lost  in  this 
way  is  only  to  be  estimated  by  those 
who  know.  True,  his  mode  of  expres- 
sion was  not  equal  to  Keene's — I  never 
knew  any  that  was,  in  England,  or  even 
approached  it  —  but  that,  as  Mr.  Rud- 
yard  Kipling  says,  is  another  story. 

The  story  that  I  will  tell  now  is  that 
of  my  brief  acquaintance  with  Leech, 
which  began  in  1860,  and  which  I  had 
not  many  opportunities  of  improving 
till  I  met  him  at  Whitby  in  the  autumn 
of  1864 — a  memorable  autumn  for  me, 
since  I  used  to  forgather  with  him  every 
day,  and  have  long  walks  and  talks  with 
15 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

him — and  dined  with  him  once  or  twice 
at  the  lodgings  where  he  was  staying 
with  his  wife  and  son  and  daughter — all 
of  whom  are  now  dead.  He  was  the 
most  sympathetic,  engaging,  and  attrac- 
tive person  I  ever  met ;  not  funny  at  all 
in  conversation,  or  ever  wishing  to  be — 
except  now  and  then  for  a  capital  story, 
which  he  told  in  perfection. 

The  key-note  of  his  character,  socially, 
seemed  to  be  self-effacement,  high-bred 
courtesy,  never-failing  consideration  for 
others.  He  was  the  most  charming  com- 
panion conceivable,  having  intimately 
known  so  many  important  and  celebrat- 
ed people,  and  liking  to  speak  of  them; 
but  one  would  never  have  guessed  from 
anything  he  ever  looked  or  said  that  he 
had  made  a  whole  nation,  male  and  fe- 
male, gentle  and  simple,  old  and  young, 
laugh  as  it  had  never  laughed  before  or 
since,  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 
16 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

He  was  tall,  thin,  and  graceful,  ex- 
tremely handsome,  of  the  higher  Irish 
type;  with  dark  hair  and  whiskers  and 
complexion,  and  very  light  grayish-blue 
eyes ;  but  the  expression  of  his  face  was 
habitually  sad,  even  when  he  smiled.  In 
dress,  bearing,  manner,  and  aspect  he 
was  the  very  type  of  the  well-bred  Eng- 
lish gentleman  and  man  of  the  world 
and  good  society ;  I  never  met  any  one 
to  beat  him  in  that  peculiar  distinction 
of  form,  which,  I  think,  has  reached  its 
highest  European  development  in  this 
country.  I  am  told  the  Orientals  are 
still  our  superiors  in  deportment.  But 
the  natural  man  in  him  was  still  the 
best.  Thackeray  and  Sir  John  Millais, 
not  bad  judges,  and  men  with  many 
friends,  have  both  said  that  they  per- 
sonally loved  John  Leech  better  than 
any  man  they  ever  knew. 

At  this  time  he  was  painting  in  oil, 

B  I7 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

and  on  an  enlarged  scale,  some  of  his 
more  specially  popular  sketches  in  Punch, 
and  very  anxious  to  succeed  with  them, 
but  nervously  diffident  of  success  with 
them,  even  with  ol  TroXAo*.  He  was  not 
at  his  happiest  in  these  efforts ;  and 
there  was  something  pathetic  in  his  ear- 
nestness and  perseverance  in  attempting 
a  thing  so  many  can  do,  but  which  he 
could  not  do  for  want  of  a  better  train- 
ing ;  while  he  could  do  the  inimitable  so 
easily. 

I  came  back  to  town  before  Leech, 
and  did  not  see  him  again  until  the  fol- 
lowing October.  On  Saturday  afternoon, 
the  28th,  I  called  at  his  house,  No.  6 
The  Terrace,  Kensington,  with  a  very 
elaborate  drawing  in  pencil  by  myself, 
which  I  presented  to  him  as  a  souvenir, 
and  with  which  he  seemed  much  pleased. 

He  was  already  working  at  the  Punch 
Almanac  for  '65,  at  a  window  on  the 

18 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

second  floor  overlooking  the  street.  (I 
have  often  gazed  up  at  it  since.)  He 
seemed  very  ill,  so  sad  and  depressed 
that  I  could  scarcely  speak  to  him  for 
sheer  sympathy ;  I  felt  he  would  never 
get  through  the  labor  of  that  almanac, 
and  left  him  with  the  most  melancholy 
forebodings. 

Monday  morning  the  papers  an- 
nounced his  death  on  Sunday,  October 
2pth,  from  angina  pectoris,  the  very 
morning  after  I  had  seen  him. 

I  was  invited  by  Messrs.  Bradbury  and 
Evans,  the  publishers  of  Punch,  to  the 
funeral,  which  took  place  at  Kensal 
Green.  It  was  the  most  touching  sight 
imaginable.  The  grave  was  near  Thack- 
eray's, who  had  died  the  year  before. 
There  were  crowds  of  people,  Charles 
Dickens  among  them ;  Canon  Hole,  a 
great  friend  of  Leech's  and  who  has 
written  most  affectionately  about  him, 
19 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

read  the  service ;  and  when  the  coffin 
was  lowered  into  the  grave,  John  Millais 
burst  into  tears  and  loud  sobs,  setting  an 
example  that  was  followed  all  round  ; 
we  all  forgot  our  manhood  and  cried  like 
women  !  I  can  recall  no  funeral  in  my 
time  where  simple  grief  and  affection 
have  been  so  openly  and  spontaneously 
displayed  by  so  many  strangers  as  well 
as  friends  —  not  even  in  France,  where 
people  are  more  demonstrative  than 
here.  No  burial  in  Westminster  Abbey 
that  I  have  ever  seen  ever  gave  such  an 
impression  of  universal  honor,  love,  and 
regret. 

"  Whom  the  gods  love  die  young." 
He  was  only  forty-six  ! 

I  was  then  invited  to  join  the  Punch 
staff  and  take  Leech's  empty  chair  at 
the  weekly  dinner  —  and  bidden  to  cut 
my  initials  on  the  table,  by  his;  his 
monogram  as  it  was  carved  by  him  is 

20 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

J.  L.  under  a  leech  in  a  bottle,  dated 
1854;  and  close  by  on  the  same  board 
are  the  initials  W.  M.  T. 

I  flatter  myself  that  convivially,  at 
least,  my  small  D.  M.,  carved  in  impene. 
trable  oak,  will  go  down  to  posterity  in 
rather  distinguished  company ! 

If  ever  there  was  a  square  English 
hole,  and  a  square  English  peg  to  fit  it, 
that  hole  was  Punch,  and  that  peg  was 
John  Leech.  He  was  John  Bull  himself, 
but  John  Bull  refined  and  civilized — 
John  Bull  polite,  modest,  gentle — full  of 
self-respect  and  self-restraint ;  and  with 
all  the  bully  softened  out  of  him ;  manly 
first  and  gentlemanly  after,  but  very 
soon  after;  more  at  home  perhaps  in 
the  club,  the  drawing-room,  and  the 
hunting-field,  in  Piccadilly  and  the  Park, 
than  in  the  farm  or  shop  or  market-place ; 
a  normal  Englishman  of  the  upper 
middle  class,  with  but  one  thing  abnor- 

21 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

mal  about  him,  viz.,  his  genius,  which 
was  of  the  kind  to  give  the  greater  pleas- 
ure to  the  greater  number  —  and  yet 
delight  the  most  fastidious  of  his  day — 
and  I  think  of  ours.  One  must  be  very 
ultra-aesthetic,  even  now,  not  to  feel  his 
charm. 

He  was  all  of  a  piece,  and  moved  and 
worked  with  absolute  ease,  freedom,  and 
certainty,  within  the  limits  nature  had 
assigned  him — and  his  field  was  a  very 
large  one.  He  saw  and  represented  the 
whole  panorama  of  life  that  came  within 
his  immediate  ken  with  an  unwavering 
consistency,  from  first  to  last ;  from  a 
broadly  humorous,  though  mostly  sym- 
pathetic point  of  view  that  never 
changed  —  a  very  delightful  point  of 
view,  if  not  the  highest  conceivable. 

Hand  and  eye  worked  with  brain  in 
singular  harmony,  and  all  three  im- 
proved together  contemporaneously, 
22 


From  the  original  drawing  by  JOHN  LEECH. 
In  the  possession  of  JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS,  Esq. 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

with  a  parallelism  most  interesting  to 
note,  as  one  goes  through  the  long  series 
of  his  social  pictures  from  the  beginning. 

He  has  no  doubts  or  hesitations — no 
bewildering  subtleties — no  seeking  from 
twelve  to  fourteen  o'clock  —  either  in 
his  ideas  or  technique,  which  very  soon 
becomes  an  excellent  technique,  thor- 
oughly suited  to  his  ideas — rapid,  bold, 
spirited,  full  of  color,  breadth,  and  move- 
ment— troubling  itself  little  about  details 
that  will  not  help  the  telling  of  his  story 
— for  before  everything  else  he  has  his 
story  to  tell,  and  it  must  either  make 
you  laugh  or  lightly  charm  you — and  he 
tells  it  in  the  quickest,  simplest,  down- 
rightest  pencil  strokes,  although  it  is 
often  a  complicated  story! 

For  there  are  not  only  the  funny  peo- 
ple and  the  pretty  people  acting  out 
their  little  drama  in  the  foreground — 
there  is  the  scene  in  which  they  act,  and 
23 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

the  middle  distance,  and  the  background 
beyond,  and  the  sky  itself;  beautiful 
rough  landscapes  and  seascapes  and 
skyscapes,  winds  and  weathers,  boister- 
ous or  sunny  seas,  rain  and  storm  and 
cloud — all  the  poetry  of  nature,  that  he 
feels  most  acutely  while  his  little  people 
are  being  so  unconsciously  droll  in  the 
midst  of  it  all.  He  is  a  king  of  impres- 
sionists, and  his  impression  becomes 
ours  on  the  spot — never  to  be  forgotten ! 
It  is  all  so  quick  and  fresh  and  strong, 
so  simple,  pat,  and  complete,  so  direct 
from  mother  Nature  herself!  It  has 
about  it  the  quality  of  inevitableness — 
those  are  the  very  people  who  would 
have  acted  and  spoken  in  just  that  man- 
ner, and  we  meet  them  every  day — the 
expression  of  the  face,  the  movement 
and  gesture,  in  anger,  terror,  dismay, 
scorn,  conceit,  tenderness,  elation,  tri- 
umph. .  .  .  Whatever  the  mood  they 
24 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

could  not  have  looked  or  acted  other- 
wise— it  is  life  itself.  An  optimistic  life 
in  which  joyousness  prevails,  and  the 
very  woes  and  discomfitures  are  broadly 
comical  to  us  who  look  on — like  some 
one  who  has  seasickness,  or  a  headache 
after  a  Greenwich  banquet — which  are 
about  the  most  tragic  things  he  has 
dealt  with. 

(I  am  speaking  of  his  purely  social 
sketches.  For  in  his  admirable  large 
cuts,  political  and  otherwise  serious,  his 
satire  is  often  bitter  and  biting  indeed ; 
and  his  tragedy  almost  Hogarthian.) 

Like  many  true  humorists  he  was  of 
a  melancholy  temperament,  and  no 
doubt  felt  attracted  by  all  that  was 
mirthful  and  bright,  and  in  happy  con- 
trast to  his  habitual  mood.  Seldom  if 
ever  does  a  drop  of  his  inner  sadness 
ooze  out  through  his  pencil  point — and 
never  a  drop  of  gall ;  and  I  do  not  re- 
25 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

member  one  cynical  touch  in  his  whole 
series. 

In  his  tastes  and  habits  he  was  by 
nature  aristocratic ;  he  liked  the  society 
of  those  who  were  well  dressed,  well 
bred  and  refined  like  himself,  and  per- 
haps a  trifle  conventional ;  he  conformed 
quite  spontaneously  and  without  effort 
to  upper-class  British  ideal  of  his  time, 
and  had  its  likes  and  dislikes.  But  his 
strongest  predilections  of  all  are  com- 
mon to  the  British  race :  his  love  of 
home,  his  love  of  sport,  his  love  of  the 
horse  and  the  hound — especially  his  love 
of  the  pretty  woman — the  pretty  woman 
of  the  normal,  wholesome  English  type. 
This  charming  creature  so  dear  to  us  all 
pervades  his  show  from  beginning  to 
end  —  she  is  a  creation  of  his  and  he 
thoroughly  loves  her,  and  draws  her 
again  and  again  with  a  fondness  that  is 
half  lover-like  and  half  paternal  —  her 
26 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

buxom  figure,  her  merry  bright  eyes 
and  fresh  complexion  and  flowing  ring- 
lets, and  pursed -up  lips  like  Cupid's 
bow.  Nor  is  he  ever  tired  of  displaying 
her  feet  and  ankles  (and  a  little  more) 
in  gales  of  wind  on  cliff  and  pier  and 
parade — or  climbing  the  Malvern  Hills. 
When  she  puts  on  goloshes  it  nearly 
breaks  his  heart,  and  he  would  fly  to 
other  climes  !  He  revels  in  her  infantile 
pouts  and  jealousies  and  heart-burnings 
and  butterfly  delights  and  lisping  mis- 
chiefs ;  her  mild,  innocent  flirtations  with 
beautiful  young  swells,  whose  cares  are 
equally  light. 

She  is  a  darling,  and  he  constantly 
calls  her  so  to  her  face.  Her  favorite 
sea-side  nook  becomes  the  mermaid's 
haunt ;  her  back  hair  flies  and  dries  in 
the  wind,  and  disturbs  the  peace  of  the 
too  susceptible  Punch.  She  is  a  little 
amazon  flour  rire,  and  rides  across  coun- 
27 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

try,  and  drives  (even  a  hansom  sometimes, 
with  a  pair  of  magnificent  young  whis- 
kerandoes  smoking  their  costly  cigars 
inside) ;  she  is  a  toxophilite,  and  her  ar- 
row sticks,  for  it  is  barbed  with  innocent 
seduction,  and  her  bull's-eye  is  the  soft 
military  heart.  She  wears  a  cricket-cap 
and  breaks  Aunt  Sally's  nose  seven 
times ;  she  puts  her  pretty  little  foot 
upon  the  croquet-ball  —  and  croquet'd 
you  are  completely!  With  what  glee 
she  would  have  rinked  and  tennised  if 
he  had  lived  a  little  longer ! 

She  is  light  of  heart,  and  perhaps  a 
little  of  head !  Her  worst  trouble  is 
when  the  captain  gives  the  wing  of  the 
fowl  to  some  other  darling  who  might 
be  her  twin  sister;  her  most  terrible 
nightmare  is  when  she  dreams  that  great 
stupid  Captain  Sprawler  upsets  a  dish  of 
trifle  over  her  new  lace  dress  with  the 
blue  satin  slip ;  but  next  morning  she  is 
28 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

herself  again,  and  rides  in  the  Row,  and 
stops  to  speak  with  that  great  stupid 
Captain  Sprawler,  who  is  very  nice  to 
look  at,  whose  back  is  very  beautiful, 
and  who  sprawls  most  gracefully  over 
the  railings,  and  pays  her  those  delight- 
ful, absurd  compliments  about  her  and 
her  horse  "  being  such  a  capital  pair," 
while,  as  a  foil  to  so  much  grace  and 
splendor,  a  poor  little  snub-nosed,  ill- 
dressed,  ill-conditioned  dwarf  of  a  snob 
looks  on,  sucking  the  top  of  his  cheap 
cane  in  abject  admiration  and  hopeless 
envy !  Then  she  pats  and  kisses  the 
nice  soft  nose  of  Cornet  Flinders's  hun- 
ter, which  is  "deucedly  aggravating  for 
Cornet  Flinders,  you  know  " — but  when 
that  noble  sportsman  is  frozen  out  and 
cannot  hunt,  she  plays  scratch-cradle 
with  him  in  the  boudoir  of  her  father's 
country-house,  or  pitches  chocolate  into 
his  mouth  from  the  oak  landing;  and 
29 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

she  lets  him  fasten  the  skates  on  to  her 
pretty  feet.  Happy  cornet !  And  she 
plays  billiards  with  her  handsome  cousin 

—  a  guardsman   at  least  —  and  informs 
him  that  she  is  just  eighteen  to  his  love 

—  and  stands  under  the  mistletoe  and 
asks   this   enviable   relation  of  hers  to 
show  her  what  the  garroter's  hug  is  like ; 
and  when  he  proceeds  to  do  so  she  calls 
out  in  distress  because  his  pointed  wax- 
ed mustache  has  scratched  her  pretty 
cheek,  and  when  Mr.  Punch  is  there,  at 
dinner,  she    and   a   sister   darling  pull 
crackers  across  his  august  white  waist- 
coat, and  scream  in  pretty  terror  at  the 
explosion ;   to  that  worthy's  excessive 
jubilation,  for  Mr.  Punch  is  Leech  him- 
self, and  nothing  she  does  can  ever  be 
amiss  in  his  eyes ! 

Sometimes,  indeed,   she  is   seriously 
transfixed  herself,  and  bids  Mr.  Tongs, 
the  hair-dresser,  cut  off  a  long  lock  of  her 
30 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

hair  where  it  will  not  be  missed  —  and 
she  looks  so  lovely  under  the  smart  of 
Cupid's  arrow  that  we  are  frantically 
jealous  of  the  irresistible  warrior  for 
whom  the  jetty  tress  is  destined.  In 
short,  she  is  innocence  and  liveliness  and 
health  incarnate — a  human  kitten. 

When  she  marries  the  gilded  youth 
with  the  ambrosial  whiskers,  their  honey- 
mooning is  like  playing  at  being  mar- 
ried, their  artless  billings  and  cooings 
are  enchanting  to  see.  She  will  have  no 
troubles — Leech  will  take  good  care  of 
that ;  her  matrimonial  tiffs  will  be  of  the 
slightest ;  hers  will  be  a  well-regulated 
household ;  the  course  of  her  conjugal 
love  will  run  smooth  in  spite  of  her  little 
indiscretions — for  like  Bluebeard's  wife 
she  can  be  curious  at  times,  and  coax 
and  wheedle  to  know  the  mysteries  of 
Freemasonry,  and  cry  because  Edwin 
will  not  reveal  the  secret  of  Mr.  Percy, 
31 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

the  horse  -  tamer ;  and  how  Edwin  can 
resist  such  an  .appeal  is  more  than  we 
can  understand !  But  soon  they  will 
have  a  large  family,  and  live  happy  ever 
after,  and  by  the  time  their  eldest-born 
is  thirteen  years  old,  the  darling  of  four- 
teen years  back  will  be  a  regular  mater- 
familias,  stout,  matronly,  and  rather 
severe ;  and  Edwin  will  be  fat,  bald,  and 
middle-aged,  and  bring  home  a  bundle 
of  asparagus  and  a  nice  new  perambu- 
lator to  celebrate  the  wedding-day! 

And  he  loves  her  brothers  and  cousins, 
military  or  otherwise,  just  as  dearly,  and 
makes  them  equally  beautiful  to  the 
eye,  with  those  lovely  drooping  whiskers 
that  used  to  fall  and  brush  their  bosoms, 
their  smartly  waistcoated  bosoms,  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago !  He  dresses 
them  even  better  than  the  darlings,  and 
has  none  but  the  kindliest  and  gentlest 
satire  for  their  little  vanities  and  conceits 
32 


"THE  JOLLY  LITTLE  STREET  ARABS 

From  the  original  drawing  for  Punch  in  possession  of  John  Kendrick  Bangs,  Esq. 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

— for  they  have  no  real  vices,  these 
charming  youths,  beyond  smoking  too 
much  and  betting  a  little  and  getting 
gracefully  tipsy  at  race-meetings  and 
Greenwich  dinners — and  sometimes  run- 
ning into  debt  with  their  tailors,  I  sup- 
pose !  And  then  how  boldly  they  ride 
to  hounds,  and  how  splendidly  they  fight 
in  the  Crimea!  how  lightly  they  dance 
at  home !  How  healthy,  good-humored, 
and  manly  they  are,  with  all  their  va- 
garies of  dress  and  jewelry  and  accent ! 
It  is  easy  to  forgive  them  if  they  give 
the  whole  of  their  minds  to  their  white 
neckties,  or  are  dejected  because  they 
have  lost  the  little  gridiron  off  their 
chatelaine,  or  lose  all  presence  of  mind 
when  a  smut  settles  on  their  noses,  and 
turn  faint  at  the  sight  of  Mrs.  Gamp's 
umbrella ! 

And  next  to  these  enviable  beings  he 
loves  and  reveres  the  sportsman.     One 
c  33 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

is  made  to  feel  that  the  true  sportsman, 
whether  he  shoots  or  hunts  or  fishes,  is 
an  august  being,  as  he  ought  to  be  in 
Great  Britain,  and  Leech  has  done  him 
full  justice  with  his  pencil.  He  is  no 
subject  for  flippant  satire ;  so  there  he 
sits  his  horse,  or  stalks  through  his  tur- 
nip-field, or  handles  his  rod  like  a  god ! 
Handsome,  well-appointed  from  top  to 
toe,  aristocratic  to  the  finger-tips  —  a 
most  impressive  figure,  the  despair  of 
foreigners,  the  envy  of  all  outsiders  at 
home  (including  the  present  lecturer) ! 

He  has  never  been  painted  like  this 
before !  What  splendid  lords  and  squires, 
fat  or  lean,  hook-nosed  or  eagle-eyed, 
well  tanned  by  sun  and  wind,  in  faultless 
kit,  on  priceless  mounts !  How  redolent 
they  are  of  health  and  wealth,  and  the 
secure  consciousness  of  high  social  posi- 
tion— of  the  cool  business-like  self-impor- 
tance that  sits  so  well  on  those  who  are 
34 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

knowing  in  the  noblest  pursuit  that  can 
ever  employ  the  energies  and  engross 
the  mind  of  a  well-born  Briton  ;  for  they 
can  ride  almost  as  well  as  their  grooms, 
these  mighty  hunters  before  the  Lord, 
and  know  the  country  almost  as  well  as 
the  huntsman  himself !  And  what  sons 
and  grandsons  and  granddaughters  are 
growing  up  round  them,  on  delightful 
ponies  no  gate,  hedge,  or  brook  can 
dismay  —  nothing  but  the  hard  high- 
road! 

It  is  a  glorious,  exhilarating  scene, 
with  the  beautiful  wintry  landscape 
stretching  away  to  the  cloudy  Novem- 
ber sky,  and  the  lords  and  ladies  gay, 
and  the  hounds,  and  the  frosty- faced, 
short-tempered  old  huntsman,  the  very 
perfection  of  his  kind ;  and  the  poor 
cockney  snobs  on  their  hired  screws, 
and  the  meek  clod -hopping  laborers 
looking  on  excited  and  bewildered, 
35' 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

happy  for  a  moment  at  beholding  so 
much  happiness  in  their  betters. 

To  have  seen  these  sketches  of  the 
hunting-field  is  to  have  been  there  in 
person.  It  is  almost  the  only  hunting 
that  I  ever  had — and  probably  ever  shall 
have  —  and  I  am  almost  content  that 
it  should  be  so !  It  is  so  much  easier 
and  simpler  to  draw  for  Punch  than  to 
drive  across  country !  And  then,  as  a 
set-off  to  all  this  successful  achievement, 
this  pride  and  pomp  and  circumstance 
of  glorious  sport,  we  have  the  immortal 
and  ever-beloved  figure  of  Mr.  Briggs, 
whom  I  look  upon  as  Leech's  master- 
piece— the  example  above  all  others  of 
the  most  humorous  and  good-natured 
satire  that  was  ever  penned  or  pencil- 
led ;  the  more  ridiculous  he  is  the  more 
we  love  him ;  he  is  more  winning  and 
sympathetic  than  even  Mr.  Pickwick 
himself,  and  I  almost  think  a  greater 
36 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

creation  !  Besides,  it  took  two  to  make 
Mr.  Pickwick,  the  author  and  the  artist. 
Whereas  Mr.  Briggs  issued  fully  equip- 
ped from  the  brain  of  Leech  alone  ! 

Not  indeed  that  all  unauthorized  gal- 
lopers after  the  fox  find  forgiveness  in 
the  eyes  of  Leech.  Woe  to  the  vulgar 
little  cockney  snob  who  dares  to  ob- 
trude his  ugly  mug  and  his  big  cigar  and 
his  hired,  broken-winded  rip  on  these 
hallowed  and  thrice -happy  hunting- 
grounds! — an  earthen- ware  pot  among 
vessels  of  brass;  the  punishment  shall 
be  made  to  fit  the  crime ;  better  if  he 
fell  off  and  his  horse  rolled  over  him 
than  that  he  should  dress  and  ride  and 
look  like  that !  For  the  pain  of  broken 
bones  is  easier  to  bear  than  the  scorn  of 
a  true  British  sportsman ! 

Then  there  are  the  fishermen  who 
never  catch  any  fish,  but  whom  no  stress 
of  weather  can  daunt  or  distress.  There 
37 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

they  sit  or  stand  with  the  wind  blowing 
or  the  rain  soaking,  in  dark  landscapes 
with  ruffled  streams  and  ominous 
clouds,  and  swaying  trees  that  turn  up 
the  whites  of  their  leaves — one  almost 
hears  the  wind  rush  through  them.  One 
almost  forgets  the  comical  little  forlorn 
figure  who  gives  such  point  to  all  the 
angry  turbulence  of  nature  in  the  im- 
pression produced  by  the  mise  en  stine 
itself — an  impression  so  happily,  so  viv- 
idly suggested  by  a  few  rapid,  instruc- 
tive pencil  strokes  and  thumb  smudges 
that  it  haunts  the  memory  like  a  dream. 

He  loves  such  open-air  scenes  so  sin- 
cerely, he  knows  so  well  how  to  express 
and  communicate  the  perennial  charm 
they  have  for  him,  that  the  veriest  book- 
worm becomes  a  sportsman  through 
sheer  sympathy  —  by  the  mere  fact  of 
looking  at  them. 

And  how  many  people  and  things  he 
33 


THANK   GOODNESS  !   FLY-FISHING   HAS   BEGUN  ! 

MILLER.    "  Don't   they   really,  perhaps  they'll  bite  better 
towards  the  cool  of  the  evening,  they  mostly  do." 

—Punch,  1857. 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

loves  that  most  of  us  love!  —  it  would 
take  all  night  to  enumerate  them — the 
good  authoritative  pater  and  mater- 
familias;  the  delightful  little  girls;  the 
charming  cheeky  school-boys ;  the  jolly 
little  street  arabs,  who  fill  old  gentle- 
men's letter-boxes  with  oyster-shells  and 
gooseberry-skins ;  the  cabmen,  the  'bus- 
men ;  the  policemen  with  the  old-fashion- 
ed chimney-pot  hat ;  the  old  bathing- 
women,  and  Jack-ashores,  and  jolly  old 
tars — his  British  tar  is  irresistible,  wheth- 
er he  is  hooking  a  sixty  -  four  pounder 
out  of  the  Black  Sea,  or  riding  a  Turk, 
or  drinking  tea  instead  of  grog  and  com- 
plaining of  its  strength  !  There  seems 
to  be  hardly  a  mirthful  corner  of  English 
life  that  Leech  has  not  seen  and  loved 
and  painted  in  this  singularly  genial  and 
optimistic  manner. 

His  loves  are  many  and  his  hates  are 
few — but  he  is  a  good  hater  all  the  same. 

39 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

He  hates  Mawworm  and  Stiggins,  and 
so  do  we.  He  hates  the  foreigner  whom 
he  does  not  know  as  heartily  as  Thack- 
eray does,  who  seems  to  know  him  so 
well — with  a  hatred  that  seems  to  me  a 
little  unjust,  perhaps ;  all  France  is  not 
in  Leicester  Square ;  many  Frenchmen 
can  dress  and  ride,  drive  and  shoot  as 
well  as  anybody  ;  and  they  began  to  use 
the  tub  very  soon  after  we  did — a  dozen 
years  or  so,  perhaps — say  after  the  coup 
d'ttat  in  1851. 

Then  he  hates  with  a  deadly  hatred 
all  who  make  music  in  the  street  or  next 
door — and  preach  in  the  cross-ways  and 
bawl  their  wares  on  the  parade.  What 
would  he  have  said  of  the  Salvation 
Army?  He  is  haunted  by  the  bark  of 
his  neighbor's  dog,  by  the  crow  of  his 
neighbor's  cochin-china  cock ;  he  cannot 
even  bear  his  neighbor  to  have  his  chim- 
ney swept ;  and  as  for  the  Christmas 
40 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

waits — we  all  remember  that  tragic  pict- 
ure! This  exaggerated  aversion  to 
noises  became  a  disease  with  him,  and 
possibly  hastened  his  end. 

Among  his  pet  hates  we  must  not  for- 
get the  gorgeous  flunky  and  the  guzzling 
alderman,  the  leering  old  fop,  the  ras- 
cally book-maker,  the  sweating  Jew 
tradesman,  and  the  poor  little  snob  (the 
'Arry  of  his  day)  who  tries  vainly  to 
grow  a  mustache,  and  wears  such  a 
shocking  bad  hat,  and  iron  heels  to  his 
shoes,  and  shuns  the  Park  during  the 
riots  for  fear  of  being  pelted  for  a 
"  haristocrat,"  and  whose  punishment  I 
think  is  almost  in  excess  of  his  misde- 
meanor. To  succeed  in  overdressing 
one's  self  (as  his  swells  did  occasionally 
without  marring  their  beauty)  is  almost 
as  ignominious  as  to  fail ;  and  when  the 
failure  comes  from  want  of  means,  there 
is  also  almost  a  pathetic  side  to  it. 
41 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

And  he  is  a  little  bit  hard  on  old 
frumps,  with  fat  ankles  and  scraggy 
bosoms  and  red  noses — but  anyhow  we 
are  made  to  laugh  —  quod  erat  demon- 
strandum. We  also  know  that  he  has 
a  strong  objection  to  cold  mutton  for 
dinner,  and  much  prefers  a  whitebait 
banquet  at  Greenwich,  or  a  nice  well- 
ordered  repast  at  the  Star  and  Garter. 

So  do  we. 

• 

And  the  only  thing  he  feared  is  the 
horse.  Nimrod  as  he  is,  and  the  happiest 
illustrator  of  the  hunting-field  that  ever 
was,  he  seems  forever  haunted  by  a 
terror  of  the  heels  of  that  noble  animal 
he  drew  so  well — and  I  thoroughly  sym- 
pathize with  him ! 

In  all  the  series  the  chief  note  is  joy- 
ousness,  high  spirits,  the  pleasure  of 
being  alive.  There  is  no  Weltschmerz  in 
his  happy  world,  where  all  is  for  the  best 
— no  hankering  after  the  moon,  no  dis- 
42 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

content  with  the  present  order  of  things. 
Only  one  little  lady  discovers  that  the 
world  is  hollow,  and  her  doll  is  stuffed 
with  bran ;  only  one  gorgeous  swell  has 
exhausted  the  possibilites  of  this  life, 
and  finds  out  that  he  is  at  loss  for  a  new 
sensation.  So  what  does  he  do  ?  Cut 
his  throat  ?  Go  and  shoot  big  game  in 
Africa  ?  No ;  he  visits  the  top  of  the 
Monument  on  a  rainy  day,  or  invites 
his  brother  swells  to  a  Punch  and  Judy 
show  in  his  rooms,  or  rides  to  White- 
chapel  and  back  on  an  omnibus  with  a 
bag  of  periwinkles,  and  picks  them  out 
with  a  pin. 

Even  when  his  humor  is  at  its  broad- 
est, and  he  revels  in  almost  pantomimic 
fun,  he  never  loses  sight  of  truth  and 
nature — never  strikes  a  false  or  uncertain 
note.  Robinson  goes  to  an  evening 
party  with  a  spiked  knuckle-duster  in  his 
pocket,  and  sits  down.  Jones  digs  an 
43 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

elderly  party  called  Smith  in  the  back 
with  the  point  of  his  umbrella,  under  the 
impression  that  it  is  his  friend  Brown. 
A  charming  little  street  Arab  prints  the 
soles  of  his  muddy  feet  on  a  smart  old 
gentleman's  white  evening  waistcoat. 
Tompkyns  writes  Henrietta  on  the  sands 
under  two  hearts  transfixed  by  an  arrow, 
and  his  wife,  whose  name  is  Matilda, 
catches  him  in  the  act.  An  old  gentle- 
man, maddened  by  a  blue -bottle, 
smashes  all  his  furniture  and  breaks 
every  window-pane  but  one — where  the 
blue-bottle  is — and  in  all  these  scenes 
one  does  not  know  which  is  the  most 
irresistible,  the  most  inimitable,  the  mere 
drollery  or  the  dramatic  truth  of  gesture 
and  facial  expression. 

The  way  in  which  every-day  people 
really  behave  in  absurd  situations  and 
under  comically  trying  circumstances  is 
quite  funny  enough  for  him ;  and  if  he 

44 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

exaggerates  a  little  and  goes  beyond  the 
absolute  prose  of  life  in  the  direction  of 
caricature,  he  never  deviates  a  hair's- 
breadth  from  the  groove  human  nature 
has  laid  down.  There  is  exaggeration, 
but  no  distortion.  The  most  wildly 
funny  people  are  low  comedians  of  the 
highest  order,  whose  fun  is  never  forced 
and  never  fails ;  they  found  themselves  on 
fact,  and  only  burlesque  what  they  have 
seen  in  actual  life  —  they  never  evolve 
their  fun  from  the  depths  of  their  inner 
consciousness;  and  in  this  naturalness, 
for  me,  lies  the  greatness  of  Leech. 
There  is  nearly  always  a  tenderness  in 
the  laughter  he  excites,  born  of  the 
touch  of  nature  that  makes  the  whole 
world  kin ! 

Where  most  of  all  he  gives  us  a  sense 
of  the  exuberant  joyousness  and  buoy- 
ancy of  life  is  in  the   sketches  of  the 
sea-side — the  newly  discovered  joys  of 
45 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

which  had  then  not  become  common- 
place to  people  of  the  middle  class.  The 
good  old  sea-side  has  grown  rather  stale 
by  this  time  —  the  very  children  of  to- 
day dig  and  paddle  in  a  half-perfunctory 
sort  of  fashion,  with  a  certain  stolidity, 
and  are  in  strange  contrast  to  those 
highly  elate  and  enchanting  little  romps 
that  fill  his  sea-side  pictures. 

Indeed,  nothing  seems  so  jolly,  noth- 
ing seems  so  funny,  now,  as  when  Leech 
was  drawing  for  Punch.  The  gayety  of 
one  nation  at  least  has  been  eclipsed  by 
his  death.  Is  it  merely  that  there  is  no 
such  light  humorist  to  see  and  draw  for 
us  in  a  frolicsome  spirit  all  the  fun  and 
the  jollity  ?  Is  it  because  some  of  us 
have  grown  old  ?  Or  is  it  that  the  Brit- 
ish people  themselves  have  changed  and 
gone  back  to  their  old  way  of  taking 
their  pleasure  sadly  ? 

Everything  is  so  different,  somehow; 
46 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

the  very  girls  themselves  have  grown  a 
head  taller,  and  look  serious,  stately, 
and  dignified,  like  Olympian  goddesses, 
even  when  they  are  dancing  and  playing 
lawn-tennis. 

I  for  one  should  no  more  dream  of 
calling  them  the  darlings  than  I  should 
dare  to  kiss  them  under  the  mistletoe, 
were  I  ever  so  splendid  a  young  captain. 
Indeed  I  am  too  prostrate  in  admiration 
— I  can  only  suck  the  top  of  my  stick 
and  gaze  in  jealous  ecstasy,  like  one  of 
Leech's  little  snobs.  They  are  no  longer 
pretty  as  their  grandmothers  were — 
whom  Leech  drew  so  well  in  the  old 
days !  They  are  beautiful  / 

And  then  they  are  so  cultivated,  and 
know  such  a  lot  —  of  books,  of  art,  of 
science,  of  politics,  and  theology — of  the 
world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil.  They 
actually  think  for  themselves ;  they  have 
broken  loose  and  jumped  over  the  ring 

47 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

fence ;  they  have  taken  to  the  water, 
these  lovely  chicks,  and  swim  like  duck- 
lings, to  the  dismay  of  those  good  old 
cocks  and  hens,  their  grandparents!  And 
my  love  of  them  is  tinged  with  awe,  as 
was  Leech's  love  of  that  mighty,  beauti- 
ful, but  most  uncertain  quadruped,  the 
thoroughbred  horse — for,  like  him,  when 
they  are  good,  they  are  very,  very  good, 
but  when  they  are  bad,  they  are  horrid. 
We  have  changed  other  things  as  well : 
the  swell  has  become  the  masher,  and  is 
a  terrible  dull  dog;  the  poor  little  snob 
has  blossomed  into  a  blatant  'Any,  and 
no  longer  wears  impossible  hats  and  iron 
heels  to  his  boots;  he  has  risen  in  the 
social  scale,  and  holds  his  own  without 
fear  or  favor  in  the  Park  and  everywhere 
else.  To  be  taken  for  a  haristocrat  is 
his  dream  !  Even  if  he  be  pelted  for  it. 
In  his  higher  developments  he  becomes 
a  "  bounder,"  and  bounds  away  in  most 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

respectable  West  End  ball-rooms.  He 
is  the  only  person  with  any  high  spirits 
left  —  perhaps  that  is  why  high  spirits 
have  gone  out  of  fashion,  like  box- 
ing the  watch  and  wrenching  off  door- 
knockers ! 

And  the  snob  of  our  day  is  quite  a 
different  person,  more  likely  than  not 
to  be  found  hobnobbing  with  dukes  and 
duchesses  —  as  irreproachable  in  dress 
and  demeanor  as  Leech  himself.  Thack- 
eray discovered  and  christened  him  for 
us  long  ago  ;  and  he  is  related  to  most 
of  us,  and  moves  in  the  best  society.  He 
has  even  ceased  to  brag  of  his  intimacy 
with  the  great,  they  have  become  so 
commonplace  to  him ;  and  if  he  swag- 
gers at  all,  it  is  about  his  acquaintance 
with  some  popular  actor  or  comic  vocal- 
ist whom  he  is  privileged  to  call  by  his 
Christian  name. 

And  those  splendid  old  grandees  of 
D  49 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

high  rank,  so  imposing  of  aspect,  so 
crushing  to  us  poor  mortals  by  mere 
virtue  not  of  their  wealth  and  title 
alone,  but  of  their  high-bred  distinction 
of  feature  and  bearing — to  which  Leech 
did  such  ample  justice — what  has  be- 
come of  them? 

They  are  like  the  snows  of  yester-year! 
They  have  gone  the  way  of  their  beauti- 
ful chariots  with  the  elaborate  armorial 
bearings  and  the  tasselled  hammercloth, 
the  bewigged,  cocked-hatted  coachman, 
and  the  two  gorgeous  flunkies  hanging 
on  behind.  Sir  Gorgeous  Midas  has 
beaten  the  dukes  in  mere  gorgeousness, 
flunkies  and  all — burlesqued  the  vulgar 
side  of  them,  and  unconsciously  shamed 
it  out  of  existence ;  made  swagger  and 
ostentation  unpopular  by  his  own  evil 
example — actually  improved  the  man- 
ners of  the  great  by  sheer  mimicry  of 
their  defects.  He  has  married  his  sons 
50 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

and  his  daughters  to  them  and  spoiled 
the  noble  curve  of  those  lovely  noses 
that  Leech  drew  so  well,  and  brought 
them  down  a  peg  in  many  ways,  and 
given  them  a  new  lease  of  life ;  and  he 
has  enabled  us  to  discover  that  they  are 
not  of  such  different  clay  from  ourselves 
after  all.  All  the  old  slavish  formulae 
of  deference  and  respect — "Your  Grace," 
"Your  Ladyship,"  "My  Lord  "—that 
used  to  run  so  glibly  off  our  tongues 
whenever  we  had  a  chance,  are  now  left 
to  servants  and  shopkeepers;  and  my 
slight  experience  of  them,  for  one,  is 
that  they  do  not  want  to  be  toadied  a 
bit,  and  that  they  are  very  polite,  well- 
bred,  and  most  agreeable  people. 

If  we  may  judge  of  our  modern  aris- 
tocracy by  that  very  slender  fragment 
of  our  contemporary  fiction,  mostly 
American,  that  still  thinks  it  worth  writ- 
ing about,  our  young  noble  of  to-day  is 
51 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

the  most  good-humored,  tolerant,  simple- 
hearted,  simple-minded,  unsophisticated 
creature  alive — thinking  nothing  of  his 
honors — prostrate  under  the  little  foot  of 
some  fair  Yankee,  who  is  just  as  likely 
as  not  to  jilt  him  for  some  transatlantic 
painter  not  yet  known  to  fame. 

Compare  this  unpretending  youth  to 
one  of  Bulwer's  heroes,  or  Disraeli's,  or 
even  Thackeray's !  And  his  simple  old 
duke  of  a  father  and  his  dowdy  old  duch- 
ess of  a  mother  are  almost  as  devoid  of 
swagger  as  himself ;  they  seem  to  apolo- 
gize for  their  very  existence,  if  we  may 
trust  these  American  chroniclers  who 
seem  to  know  them  so  well ;  and  I  really 
think  we  no  longer  care  to  hear  and  read 
about  them  quite  so  much  as  we  did — 
unless  it  be  in  the  society  papers ! 

But  all  these  past  manners  and  cus- 
toms that  some  of  us  can  remember  so 
well — all  these  obsolete  people,  from  the 
52 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

heavily  whiskered  swell  to  the  policeman 
with  the  leather-bound  chimney-pot  hat, 
from  good  pater  and  materfamilias,  who 
were  actually  looked  up  to  and  obeyed 
by  their  children,  to  the  croquet-playing 
darlings  in  the  pork-pie  hats  and  huge 
crinolines — all  survive  and  will  survive 
for  many  a  year  in  John  Leech's  pict- 
ures of  Life  and  Character. 

Except  for  a  certain  gentleness,  kind- 
liness, and  self-effacing  modesty  com- 
mon to  both,  and  which  made  them  ap- 
pear almost  angelic  in  the  eyes  of  many 
who  knew  them,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
imagine  a  greater  contrast  to  Leech  than 
Charles  Keene. 

Charles  Keene  was  absolutely  uncon- 
ventional, and  even  almost  eccentric. 
He  dressed  more  with  a  view  to  artistic 
picturesqueness  than  to  fashion,  and  de- 
spised gloves  and  chimney-pot  hats,  and 
black  coats  and  broadcloth  generally. 

53 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

Scotch  tweed  was  good  enough  for  him 
in  town  and  country  alike.  Though  a 
Tory  in  politics,  he  was  democratic  in 
his  tastes  and  habits.  He  liked  to  smoke 
his  short  black  pipe  on  the  tops  of  om- 
nibuses; he  liked  to  lay  and  light  his 
own  fire  and  cook  his  mutton-chop  upon 
it.  He  had  a  passion  for  music  and  a 
beautiful  voice,  and  sang  with  a  singular 
pathos  and  charm,  but  he  preferred  the 
sound  of  his  bagpipes  to  that  of  his  own 
singing,  and  thought  that  you  must  pre- 
fer it  too ! 

He  was  forever  sketching  in  pen 
and  ink,  in -doors  and  out — he  used  at 
one  time  to  carry  a  little  ink-bottle  at 
his  button-hole,  and  steel  pens  in  his 
waistcoat-pocket,  and  thus  equipped  he 
would  sketch  whatever  took  his  fancy  in 
his  walks  abroad — houses,  'busses,  cabs, 
people — bits  of  street  and  square,  scaf- 
foldings, boardings  with  advertisements 

54 


From  a  photograph  by  Elliott  and  Fry,  Londo 
CHARLES     KEENE 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

— sea,  river,  moor,  lake,  and  mountain — 
what  has  he  not  sketched  with  that  mas- 
terly pen  that  had  already  been  so  care- 
fully trained  by  long  and  arduous  prac- 
tice in  a  life-school?  His  heart  was  in 
his  work  from  first  to  last ;  beyond  his 
bagpipes  and  his  old  books  (for  he  was  a 
passionate  reader),  he  seemed  to  have 
no  other  hobby.  His  facility  in  sketch- 
ing became  phenomenal,  as  also  his 
knowledge  of  what  to  put  in  and  what 
to  leave  out,  so  that  the  effect  he  aimed 
at  should  be  secured  in  perfection  and 
with  the  smallest  appearance  of  labor. 

Among  his  other  gifts  he  had  a  phys- 
ical gift  of  inestimable  value  for  such 
work  as  ours — namely,  a  splendid  hand 
— a  large,  muscular,  well -shaped,  and 
most  workman -like  hand,  whose  long 
deft  fingers  could  move  with  equal  ease 
and  certainty  in  all  directions.  I  have 
seen  it  at  work — and  it  was  a  pleasure 
55 


.   SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

to  watch  its  acrobatic  dexterity,  its  un- 
erring precision  of  touch.  It  could  draw 
with  nonchalant  facility  parallel  straight 
lines,  or  curved,  of  just  the  right  thick- 
ness and  distance  from  each  other  —  al- 
most as  regular  as  if  they  had  been 
drawn  with  ruler  or  compass — almost, 
but  not  quite.  The  quiteness  would 
have  made  them  mechanical,  and  robbed 
them  of  their  charm  of  human  handi- 
craft. A  cunning  and  obedient  slave, 
this  wonderful  hand,  for  which  no  com- 
mand from  the  head  could  come  amiss — 
a  slave,  moreover,  that  had  most  thor- 
oughly learned  its  business  by  long  ap- 
prenticeship to  one  especial  trade,  like 
the  head  and  like  the  eye  that  guided  it. 
Leech  no  doubt  had  a  good  natural 
hand,  that  swept  about  with  enviable 
freedom  and  boldness,  but  for  want  of 
early  discipline  it  could  not  execute 
these  miracles  of  skill;  and  the  com- 
56 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

mands  that  came  from  the  head  also 
lacked  the  preciseness  which  results 
from  patiently  acquired  and  well-digest- 
ed knowledge,  so  that  Mr.  Hand  was 
apt  now  and  then  to  zigzag  a  little  on 
its  own  account  —  in  backgrounds,  on 
floors  and  walls,  under  chairs  and  tables, 
whenever  a  little  tone  was  felt  to  be  de- 
i."  "Me  —  sometimes  in  the  shading  of 
coaFs  and  trousers  and  ladies'  dresses. 

But  it  never  took  a  liberty  with  a  hu- 
man face  or  a  horse's  head ;  and  when- 
ever it  went  a  little  astray  you  could  al- 
ways read  between  the  lines  and  know 
exactly  what  it  meant. 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  reading  be- 
tween Keene's  lines ;  every  one  of  them 
has  its  unmistakable  definite  intimation ; 
every  one  is  the  right  line  in  the  right 
place ! 

We  must  remember  that  there  are  no 
such  things  as  lines  in  nature.  Whether 

57 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

we  use  them  to  represent  a  human  pro- 
file, the  depth  of  a  shadow,  the  darkness 
of  a  cloak  or  a  thunder-cloud,  they  are 
mere  conventional  symbols.  They  were 
invented  a  long  time  ago,  by  a  distin- 
guished sportsman  who  was  also  a 
heaven-born  amateur  artist  —  the  John 
Leech  of  his  day — who  engraved  for  us 
(from  life)  the  picture  of  a  mammoth  on 
one  of  its  own  tusks. 

And  we  have  accepted  them  ever  since 
as  the  cheapest  and  simplest  way  of  in- 
terpreting in  black  and  white  for  the 
wood-engraver  the  shapes  and  shadows 
and  colors  of  nature.  They  may  be 
scratchy,  feeble,  and  uncertain,  or  firm 
and  bold  —  thick  and  thin  —  straight, 
curved,  parallel,  or  irregular  —  cross- 
hatched  once,  twice,  a  dozen  times,  at 
any  angle — every  artist  has  his  own  way 
of  getting  his  effect.  But  some  ways 
are  better  than  others,  and  I  think 
58 


in  s 
5°  o 
!1  •< 


I:    w 


H  •» 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

Keene's  is  the  firmest,  loosest,  simplest 
and  best  way  that  ever  was,  and  —  the 
most  difficult  to  imitate.  His  mere  pen- 
strokes  have,  for  the  expert,  a  beauty 
and  an  interest  quite  apart  from  the 
thing  they  are  made  to  depict,  whether 
he  uses  them  as  mere  outlines  to  express 
the  shape  of  things  animate  or  inanimate, 
even  such  shapeless,  irregular  things  as 
the  stones  on  a  sea-beach  —  or  in  com- 
bination to  suggest  the  tone  and  color 
of  a  dress-coat,  or  a  drunkard's  nose,  of 
a  cab  or  omnibus — of  a  distant  moun- 
tain with  miles  of  atmosphere  between 
it  and  the  figures  in  the  foreground. 

His  lines  are  as  few  as  can  be — he  is 
most  economical  in  this  respect  and 
loves  to  leave  as  much  white  paper  as  he 
can  ;  but  one  feels  in  his  best  work  that 
one  line  more  or  one  line  less  would 
impair  the  perfection  of  the  whole  — 
that  of  all  the  many  directions,  curves, 
59 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

and  thicknesses  they  might  have  taken 
he  has  inevitably  hit  upon  just  the  right 
one.  He  has  beaten  all  previous  rec- 
ords in  this  respect — in  this  country,  at 
least.  I  heard  a  celebrated  French 
painter  say:  "  He  is  a  great  man,  your 
Charles  Keene ;  he  take  a  pen  and  ink 
and  a  bit  of  paper,  and  wiz  a  half-dozen 
strokes  he  know  'ow  to  frame  a  gust  of 
wind !"  I  think  myself  that  Leech 
could  frame  a  gust  of  wind  as  effectually 
as  Keene,  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  un- 
taught natural  instinct  —  of  his  genius; 
but  not  with  the  deftness — this  economy 
of  material — this  certainty  of  execution 
— this  consummate  knowledge  of  effect. 
To  borrow  a  simile  from  music,  there 
are  certain  tunes  so  fresh  and  sweet  and 
pretty  that  they  please  at  once  and  for- 
ever, like  "  Home,  Sweet  Home,"  or 
"  The  Last  Rose  of  Summer  ";  they  go 
straight  to  the  heart  of  the  multitude, 
60 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

however  slight  the  accompaniment — a 
few  simple  chords — they  hardly  want  an 
accompaniment  at  all. 

Leech's  art  seems  to  me  of  just  such 
a  happy  kind :  he  draws  —  I  mean  he 
scores  like  an  amateur  who  has  not 
made  a  very  profound  study  of  harmony, 
and  sings  his  pretty  song  to  his  simple 
accompaniment  with  so  sweet  and  true 
a  natural  voice  that  we  are  charmed.  It 
is  the  magic  of  nature,  whereas  Keene 
is  a  very  Sebastian  Bach  in  his  counter- 
point. There  is  nothing  of  the  amateur 
about  him ;  his  knowledge  of  harmony 
in  black  and  white  is  complete  and  thor- 
ough; mere  consummate  scoring  has 
become  to  him  a  second  nature;  each 
separate  note  of  his  voice  reveals  the 
long  training  of  the  professional  singer ; 
and  if  his  tunes  are  less  obviously  sweet 
and  his  voice  less  naturally  winning  and 
sympathetic  than  Leech's,  his  aesthetic 

61 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

achievement  is  all  the  greater.  It  is  to 
his  brother  artists  rather  than  to  the 
public  at  large  that  his  most  successful 
appeal  is  made — but  with  an  intensity 
that  can  only  be  gained  by  those  who 
have  tried  in  vain  to  do  what  he  has 
done,  and  who  thereby  know  how  diffi- 
cult it  is.  His  real  magic  is  that  of  art. 
This  perhaps  accounts  for  the  unmis- 
takable fact  that  Leech's  popularity  has 
been  so  much  greater  than  Keene's,  and 
I  believe  is  still.  Leech's  little  melodies 
of  the  pencil  (to  continue  the  parallel 
with  the  sister  art)  are  like  Volkslieder — 
national  airs — and  more  directly  reach 
the  national  heart.  Transplant  them  to 
other  lands  that  have  pencil  Volkslieder 
of  their  own  (though  none,  I  think,  com- 
parable to  his  for  fun  and  sweetness  and 
simplicity)  and  they  fail  to  please  as 
much,  while  their  mere  artistic  qualities 
are  not  such  as  to  find  favor  among  for- 
62 


2  » 


II 


Jt 

s-  a- 
El 

81    — 

3     '.  ^ 

S  cd  S 

g.  f  H 

B-.  B-  3 

K    W  -^ 

S?-  O 

^?  S 

|-  g 

M  3 

g  ?  g 

s*  _ 

^o  r 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

eign  experts,  whereas  Keene  actually 
gains  by  such  a  process.  He  is  as  much 
admired  by  the  artists  of  France  and  Ger- 
many as  by  our  own — if  not  more.  For 
some  of  his  shortcomings,  such  as  his 
lack  of  feeling  for  English  female  beauty, 
his  want  of  perception,  perhaps  his  dis- 
dain, of  certain  little  eternal  traits  and 
conventions  and  differences  that  stamp 
the  various  grades  of  our  social  hierarchy, 
do  not  strike  them,  and  nothing  inter- 
feres with  their  complete  appreciation 
of  his  craftsmanship. 

Perhaps,  also,  Leech's  frequent  verifi- 
cation of  our  manly  British  pluck  and 
honesty,  and  proficiency  in  sport,  and 
wholesomeness  and  cleanliness  of  body 
and  mind,  our  general  physical  beauty 
and  distinction,  and  his  patriotic  ten- 
dency to  contrast  our  exclusive  posses- 
sion of  these  delightful  gifts  with  the 
deplorable  absence  of  them  in  any  coun- 
63 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

try  but  our  own,  may  fail  to  enlist  the 
sympathies  of  the  benighted  foreigner. 

Whereas  there  is  not  much  to  humili- 
ate the  most  touchy  French  or  German 
reader  of  Punch,  or  excite  his  envy,  in 
Charles  Keene's  portraiture  of  our  race. 
He  is  impartial  and  detached,  and  the 
most  rabid  Anglophobe  may  frankly  ad- 
mire him  without  losing  his  self-esteem. 
The  English  lower  middle  class  and 
people,  that  Keene  has  depicted  with 
such  judicial  freedom  from  either  prej- 
udice or  prepossession,  have  many  vir- 
tues; but  they  are  not  especially  con- 
spicuous for  much  vivacity  or  charm 
of  aspect  or  gainliness  of  demeanor ; 
and  he  has  not  gone  out  of  his  way  to 
idealize  them. 

Also,  he  seldom  if  ever  gibes  at  those 
who  have  not  been  able  to  resist  the 
temptations  (as  Mr.  Gilbert  would  say) 
of  belonging  to  other  nations. 
64 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

Thus  in  absolute  craftsmanship  and 
technical  skill,  in  the  ease  and  beauty  of 
his  line,  his  knowledge  of  effect,  his  com- 
plete mastery  over  the  material  means 
at  his  disposal,  Charles  Keene  seems  to 
me  as  superior  to  Leech  as  Leech  is  to 
him  in  grace,  in  human  naturalness  and 
geniality  of  humor,  in  accurate  observa- 
tion of  life,  in  keenness  of  social  percep- 
tion, and  especially  in  width  of  range. 

The  little  actors  on  Leech's  stage  are 
nearly  all  of  them  every-day  people — 
types  one  is  constantly  meeting.  High 
or  low,  tipsy  or  sober,  vulgar  or  refined, 
pleasant  or  the  reverse,  we  knew  them 
all  before  Leech  ever  drew  them;  and  our 
recognition  of  them  on  his  page  is  full 
of  delight  at  meeting  old  familiar  friends 
and  seeing  them  made  fun  of  for  our 
amusement. 

Whereas  a  great  many  of  Keene's  mid- 
dle-class protagonists  are  peculiar  and 

E  65 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

exceptional,  and  much  of  their  humor 
lies  in  their  eccentricity ;  they  are  char- 
acters themselves,  rather  than  types  of 
English  characters.  Are  they  really 
observed  and  drawn  from  life,  do  they 
really  exist  just  as  they  are,  or  are  they 
partly  evolved  from  the  depths  of  an  in- 
ner consciousness  that  is  not  quite  satis- 
fied with  life  just  as  it  is? 

They  are  often  comic,  with  their  ex- 
quisitely drawn  faces  so  full  of  subtlety — 
intensely  comic !  Their  enormous  per- 
plexities about  nothing,  their  utter  guile- 
lessness,  their  innocence  of  the  wicked 
world  and  its  ways,  make  them  engaging 
sometimes  in  spite  of  a  certain  ungain- 
liness  of  gesture,  dress,  and  general  be- 
havior that  belongs  to  them,  and  which 
delighted  Charles  Keene,  who  was  the 
reverse  of  ungainly,  just  as  the  oft-recur- 
ring tipsiness  of  his  old  gentlemen  de- 
lighted him,  though  he  was  the  most  ab- 

66 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

stemious  of  men.  I  am  now  speaking 
of  his  middle-class  people  —  those  won- 
derful philistines  of  either  sex ;  those 
elaborately  capped  and  corpulent  old 
ladies ;  those  mutton  -  chop  -  whiskered, 
middle-aged  gentlemen  with  long  upper 
lips  and  florid  complexions,  receding 
chins,  noses  almost  horizontal  in  their 
prominence ;  those  artless  damsels  who 
trouble  themselves  so  little  about  the 
latest  fashions ;  those  feeble  -  minded, 
hirsute  swells  with  the  sloping  shoulders 
and  the  broad  hips  and  the  little  hats 
cocked  on  one  side ;  those  unkempt, 
unspoiled,  unspotted  from  the  world 
brothers  of  the  brush,  who  take  in  their 
own  milk,  and  so  complacently  ignore 
all  the  rotten  conventionalism  of  our 
over-civilized  existence. 

When  he  takes  his  subjects  from  the 
classes  beneath  these,  he  is,  if  not  quite 
so  funny,  at  his  best,  I  think.     His  cos- 
67 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

termongers  and  policemen,  his  omnibus 
drivers  and  conductors  and  cabbies,  are 
inimitable  studies ;  and  as  for  his  'busses 
and  cabs,  I  really  cannot  find  words  to 
express  my  admiration  of  them.  In 
these,  as  in  his  street  scenes  and  land- 
scapes, he  is  unapproached  and  unap- 
proachable. 

Nor  must  we  forget  his  canny  Scots- 
men, his  Irish  laborers  and  peasants,  his 
splendid  English  navvies,  and  least  of  all 
his  volunteers — he  and  Leech  might  be 
called  the  pillars  of  the  volunteer  move- 
ment, from  the  manner,  so  true,  so  sym- 
pathetic, and  so  humorous,  in  which 
they  have  immortalized  its  beginning. 

Charles  Keene  is  seldom  a  satirist. 
His  nature  was  too  tolerant  and  too 
sweet  for  hate,  and  that  makes  him  a  bad 
and  somewhat  perfunctory  hater.  He 
tries  to  hate  'Any,  but  he  can't,  for  he 
draws  an  ideal  'Any  that  surely  never 
68 


"NONE   O*   YOUR   LARKS" 

GIGANTIC  NAVVY.  "  Let's  walk  between  yer,  Gents;  folks  '11  think  you've  took 
up  a  Deserter." — Punch,  October  19,  1861. 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

was,  and  thus  his  shaft  misses  the  mark ; 
compare  his  'Any  to  one  of  Leech's 
snobs,  for  instance !  He  tries  to  hate 
the  haw-haw  swell,  and  is  equally  un- 
successful. When  you  hate  and  can 
draw,  you  can  draw  what  you  hate  down 
to  its  minutest  details — better,  perhaps, 
than  what  you  love — so  that  whoever 
runs  and  reads  and  looks  at  your  pict- 
ures hates  with  you. 

Who  ever  hated  a  personage  of  Keene's 
beyond  that  feeble  kind  of  aversion  that 
comes  from  mere  uncongeniality,  a 
slightly  offended  social  taste,  or  prej- 
udice ?  One  feels  a  mere  indulgent  and 
half-humorous  disdain,  but  no  hate.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  do  not  think  that  we 
love  his  personages  very  much  —  we 
stand  too  much  outside  his  eccentric 
world  for  sympathy.  From  the  pencil 
of  this  most  lovable  man,  with  his 
unrivalled  power  of  expressing  all  he 
69 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

saw  and  thought,  I  cannot  recall  many 
lovable  characters  of  either  sex  or  any 
age.  Here  and  there  a  good-natured 
cabby,  a  jolly  navvy,  a  simple-minded 
flautist  or  bagpiper,  or  a  little  street 
Arab,  like  the  small  boy  who  pointed 
out  the  jail  doctor  to  his  pal  and  said, 
"  That's  my  medical  man." 

Whereas  Leech's  pages  teem  with 
winning,  graceful,  lovable  types,  and 
here  and  there  a  hateful  one  to  give 
relief. 

But,  somehow,  one  liked  the  man  who 
drew  these  strange  people,  even  without 
knowing  him  ;  when  you  knew  him  you 
loved  him  very  much — so  much  that  no 
room  was  left  in  you  for  envy  of  his  un- 
attainable mastery  in  his  art.  For  of 
this  there  can  be  no  doubt — no  greater 
or  more  finished  master  in  black  and 
white  has  devoted  his  life  to  the  illustra- 
tion of  the  manners  and  humors  of  his 
70 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

time ;  and  if  Leech  is  even  greater  than 
he,  and  I  for  one  am  inclined  to  think 
he  is,  it  is  not  as  an  artist,  but  as  a  stu- 
dent and  observer  of  human  nature,  as  a 
master  of  the  light,  humorous,  superficial 
criticism  of  life. 

Charles  Keene  died  of  general  atrophy 
on  January  4,  1891.  It  was  inexpres- 
sibly pathetic  to  see  how  patiently,  how 
resignedly,  he  wasted  away ;  he  retained 
his  unalterable  sweetness  to  the  last. 

His  handsome,  dark-skinned  face,  so 
strongly  lined  and  full  of  character ;  his 
mild  and  magnificent  light -gray  eyes, 
that  reminded  one  of  a  St.  Bernard's ; 
his  tall,  straight,  slender  aspect,  that  re- 
minded one  of  Don  Quixote ;  his  sim- 
plicity of  speech  and  character ;  his  love 
of  humor,  and  the  wonderful  smile  that 
lit  up  his  face  when  he  heard  a  good 
story,  and  the  still  more  wonderful  wink 
of  his  left  eye  when  he  told  one — all 
71 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

these  will  remain  strongly  impressed 
on  the  minds  of  those  who  ever  met 
him. 

I  attended  his  funeral  as  I  had  attend- 
ed Leech's  twenty -six  years  before; 
Canon  Ainger,  a  common  friend  of  us 
both,  performed  the  service.  It  was  a 
bitterly  cold  day,  which  accounted  for 
the  sparseness  of  the  mourners  compared 
to  the  crowd  that  was  present  on  the 
former  occasion ;  but  bearing  in  mind 
that  all  those  present  were  either  rela- 
tions or  old  friends,  all  of  them  with  the 
strongest  and  deepest  personal  regard 
(or  the  friend  we  had  lost,  the  attend- 
ance seemed  very  large  indeed ;  and  all 
of  us,  I  think,  in  our  affectionate  remem- 
brance of  one  of  the  most  singularly 
sweet-natured,  sweet-tempered,  and  sim- 
ple-hearted men  that  ever  lived,  forgot 
for  the  time  that  a  very  great  artist  was 
being  laid  to  his  rest. 
72 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

And  now,  in  fulfilment  of  my  contract, 
I  must  speak  of  myself — a  difficult  and 
not  very  grateful  task.  One's  self  is  a 
person  about  whom  one  knows  too  much 
and  too  little  —  about  whom  we  can 
never  hit  a  happy  medium.  Sometimes 
one  rates  one's  self  too  high,  sometimes 
(but  less  frequently)  too  low,  according 
to  the  state  of  our  digestion,  our  spirits, 
our  pocket,  or  even  the  weather ! 

In  the  present  instance  I  will  say  all 
the  good  of  myself  I  can  decently,  and 
leave  all  the  rating  to  you.  It  is  inev- 
itable, however  unfortunate  it  may  be 
for  me,  that  I  should  be  compared  with 
my  two  great  predecessors,  Leech  and 
Keene,  whom  I  have  just  been  compar- 
ing to  each  other. 

When  John  Leech's  mantle  fell  from 
his  shoulders  it  was  found  that  the  gar- 
ment was  ample  to  clothe  the  naked- 
ness of  more  than  one  successor. 

73 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

John  Tenniel  had  already,  it  is  true, 
replaced  him  for  several  years  as  the 
political  cartoonist  of  Punch.  How  ad- 
mirably he  has  always  filled  that  post, 
then  and  ever  since,  and  how  great  his 
fame  is,  I  need  not  speak  of  here.  Lin- 
ley  Sambourne  and  Harry  Furniss,  so 
different  from  each  other  and  from  Ten- 
niel, have  also,  since  then,  brought  their 
great  originality  and  their  unrivalled  skill 
to  the  political  illustrations  of  Punch — 
Sambourne  to  the  illustration  of  many 
other  things  in  it  besides,  but  which  do 
not  strictly  belong  to  the  present  subject. 

I  am  here  concerned  with  the  social 
illustrators  alone,  and,  besides,  only  with 
those  who  have  made  the  sketches  of 
social  subjects  in  Punch  the  principal 
business  of  their  lives.  For  very  many 
artists,  from  Sir  John  Millais,  Sir  John 
Gilbert,  Frederick  Walker,  and  Ran- 
dolph Caldecott  downward,  have  con- 

74 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

tributed  to  that  fortunate  periodical  at 
one  time  or  another,  and  not  a  few  dis- 
tinguished amateurs. 

Miss  Georgina  Bowers,  Mr.  Corbould, 
and  others  have  continued  the  fox-hunt- 
ing tradition,  and  provided  those  scenes 
which  have  become  a  necessity  to  the 
sporting  readers  of  Punch. 

To  Charles  Keene  was  fairly  left  that 
part  of  the  succession  that  was  most  to 
his  taste  —  the  treatment  of  life  in  the 
street  and  the  open  country,  in  the  shops 
and  parlors  of  the  lower  middle  class, 
and  the  homes  of  the  people. 

And  to  me  were  allotted  the  social  and 
domestic  dramas,  the  nursery,  the  school- 
room, the  dining  and  drawing  rooms, 
and  croquet -lawns  of  the  more  or  less 
well-to-do. 

I  was  particularly  told  not  to  try  to 
be  broadly  funny,  but  to  undertake  the 
light  and  graceful  business,  like  zjeune 
75 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

premier.  I  was,  in  short,  to  be  the 
tenor,  or  rather  the  tenorino,  of  that 
little  company  for  which  Mr.  Punch 
beats  time  with  his  immortal  baton,  and 
to  warble  in  black  and  white  such  mel- 
odies as  I  could  evolve  from  my  con- 
templations of  the  gentler  aspect  of 
English  life,  while  Keene,  with  his  mag- 
nificent, highly  trained  basso,  sang  the 
comic  songs. 

We  all  became  specialized,  so  to 
speak,  and  divided  Leech's  vast  domain 
among  us. 

We  kicked  a  little  at  first,  I  remember, 
and  whenever  (to  continue  the  musical 
simile)  I  could  get  in  a  comic  song,  or 
what  I  thought  one,  or  some  queer  fan- 
tastic ditty  about  impossible  birds  and 
hearts  and  fishes  and  what  not,  I  did  not 
let  the  opportunity  slip ;  while  Keene, 
who  had  a  very  fine  falsetto  on  the  top 
of  his  chest  register,  would  now  and 
76 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

then  warble,  pianissimo,  some  little  bal- 
lad of  the  drawing-room  or  nursery. 

But  gradually  we  settled  into  our  re- 
spective grooves,  and  I  have  grown  to 
like  my  little  groove  very  much,  nar- 
row though  it  be  —  a  poor  thing,  but 
mine  own  ! 

Moreover,  certain  physical  disabilities 
that  I  have  the  misfortune  to  labor  un- 
der make  it  difficult  for  me  to  study  and 
sketch  the  lusty  things  in  the  open  air 
and  sunshine.  My  sight,  besides  being 
defective  in  many  ways,  is  so  sensitive 
that  I  cannot  face  the  common  light  of 
day  without  glasses  thickly  rimmed  with 
wire  gauze,  so  that  sketching  out-of- 
doors  is  often  to  me  a  difficult  and 
distressing  performance.  That  is  also 
partly  why  I  am  not  a  sportsman  and  a 
delineator  of  sport. 

I  mention  this  infirmity  not  as  an  ex- 
cuse for  my  shortcomings  and  failures — 
77 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

for  them  there  is  no  excuse — but  as  a 
reason  why  I  have  abstained  from  the 
treatment  of  so  much  that  is  so  popular, 
delightful,  and  exhilarating  in  English 
country  life. 

If  there  had  been  no  Charles  Keene 
(a  terrible  supposition  both  for  Punch 
and  its  readers),  I  should  have  done  my 
best  to  illustrate  the  lower  walks  and 
phases  of  London  existence,  which  at- 
tract me  as  much  as  any  other.  It  is 
just  as  easy  to  draw  a  costermonger  or 
a  washer-woman  as  it  is  a  gentleman  or 
lady — perhaps  a  little  easier — but  it  is 
by  no  means  so  easy  to  draw  them  as 
Keene  did  !  And  to  draw  a  cab  or  an 
omnibus  after  him  (though  I  have  some- 
times been  obliged  to  do  so)  is  almost 
tempting  Providence ! 

If  there  had  been  no  Charles  Keene, 
I  might,  perhaps,  with  practice,  have  be- 
come a  funny  man  myself — though  I  do 
78 


><  o 
9  a 


if  SJ 


•<  5' 
g.  S- 

'l  I 


5  N 

II 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

not  suppose  that  my  fun  would  have 
ever  been  of  the  broadest ! 

Before  I  became  an  artist  I  was  con- 
sidered particularly  good  at  caricaturing 
my  friends,  who  always  foresaw  for  me 
more  than  one  change  of  profession,  and 
Punch  as  the  final  goal  of  my  wander- 
ings in  search  of  a  career.  For  it  was 
originally  intended  that  I  should  be  a 
man  of  science. 

Dr.  Williamson,  the  eminent  chemist 
and  professor  of  chemistry,  told  me  not 
long  ago  that  he  remembers  caricatures 
that  I  drew,  now  forty  years  back,  when 
I  was  studying  under  him  at  the  Labor- 
atory of  Chemistry  at  University  College, 
and  that  he  and  other  grave  and  rever- 
end professors  were  hugely  tickled  by 
them  at  the  time.  Indeed  he  remembers 
nothing  else  about  me,  except  that  I 
promised  to  be  a  very  bad  chemist. 

I  was  a  very  bad  chemist  indeed,  but 

79 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

not  for  long !  As  soon  as  I  was  free  to 
do  as  I  pleased,  I  threw  up  test-tubes 
and  crucibles  and  went  back  to  Paris, 
where  I  was  born  and  brought  up,  and 
studied  to  become  an  artist  in  M. 
Gl£yre's  studio.  Then  I  went  to  Ant- 
werp, where  there  is  a  famous  school  of 
painting,  and  where  I  had  no  less  a  per- 
son than  Mr.  Alma-Tadema  as  a  fellow- 
student.  It  was  all  delightful,  but  mis- 
fortune befell  me,  and  I  lost  the  sight 
of  one  eye — perhaps  it  was  the  eye  with 
which  I  used  to  do  the  funny  carica- 
tures ;  it  was  a  very  good  eye,  much  the 
better  of  the  two,  and  the  other  has  not 
improved  by  having  to  do  a  double 
share  of  the  work. 

And  then  in  time  I  came  to  England 
and  drew  for  Punch,  thus  fulfilling  the 
early  prophecy  of  my  friends  and  fellow- 
students  at  University  College — though 
not  quite  in  the  sense  they  anticipated. 
80 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

I  will  not  attempt  a  description  of  my 
work — it  is  so  recent  and  has  been  so 
widely  circulated  that  it  should  be  un- 
necessary to  do  so.  If  you  do  not 
remember  it,  it  is  that  it  is  not  worth 
remembering ;  if  you  do,  I  can  only  en- 
treat you  to  be  to  my  faults  a  little 
blind,  and  to  my  virtues  very  kind ! 

I  have  always  tried  as  honestly  and 
truthfully  as  lies  in  me  to  serve  up  to  the 
readers  of  Punch  whatever  I  have  culled 
with  the  bodily  eye,  after  cooking  it 
a  little  in  the  brain.  My  raw  material 
requires  more  elaborate  working  than 
Leech's.  He  dealt  more  in  flowers  and 
fruits  and  roots,  if  I  may  express  myself 
so  figuratively — from  the  lordly  pineap- 
ple and  lovely  rose,  down  to  the  hum- 
ble daisy  and  savory  radish.  /  deal  in 
vegetables,  I  suppose.  Little  that  I  ever 
find  seems  to  me  fit  for  the  table  just  as 
I  see  it ;  morever,  by  dishing  it  up  raw 

F  8l 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

I  should  offend  many  people  and  make 
many  enemies,  and  deserve  to  do  so.  I 
cook  my  green  pease,  asparagus,  French 
beans,  Brussels  sprouts,  German  sauer- 
kraut, and  even  a  truffle  now  and  then, 
so  carefully  that  you  would  never  rec- 
ognize them  as  they  were  when  I  first 
picked  them  in  the  social  garden.  And 
they  do  not  recognize  themselves!  Or 
even  each  other ! 

And  I  do  my  best  to  dish  them  up  in 
good,  artistic  style.  O  that  I  could  ar- 
range for  you  a  truffle  with  all  that 
culinary  skill  that  Charles  Keene  brought 
to  the  mere  boiling  of  a  carrot  or  a  po- 
tato !  He  is  the  cordon  bleu  par  excel- 
lence. The  people  I  meet  seem  to  me 
more  interesting  than  funny  —  so  in- 
teresting that  I  am  well  content  to 
draw  them  as  I  see  them,  after  just  a 
little  arrangement  and  a  very  transpar- 
ent disguise — and  without  any  attempt 
82 


S  rf  2  c/J  g 
£  -o  <  £.  < 
.*•  C  a  **  in 


S'B 


IB. 


M 

S-      G 

£5      £2 
S     5 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

at  caricature.  The  better  looking  they 
are,  the  more  my  pencil  loves  them,  and 
I  feel  more  inclined  to  exaggerate  in 
this  direction  than  in  any  other. 

Sam  Weller,  if  you  recollect,  was  fond 
of  "pootiness  and  wirtue."  I  so  agree 
with  him  !  I  adore  them  both,  especial- 
ly in  women  and  children.  I  only  wish 
that  the  wirtue  was  as  easy  to  draw  as 
the  pootiness. 

But  indeed  for  me  —  speaking  as  an 
artist,  and  also,  perhaps,  a  little  bit  as  a 
man — pootiness  is  almost  a  wirtue  in  it- 
self. I  don't  think  I  shall  ever  weary  of 
trying  to  depict  it,  from  its  dawn  in  the 
toddling  infant  to  its  decline  and  set- 
ting and  long  twilight  in  the  beautiful 
old  woman,  who  has  known  how  to  grow 
old  gradually.  I  like  to  surround  it  with 
chivalrous  and  stalwart  manhood ;  and 
it  is  a  standing  grievance  to  me  that  I 
have  to  clothe  all  this  masculine  escort 
83 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

in  coats  and  trousers  and  chimney-pot 
hats ;  worse  than  all,  in  the  evening  dress 
of  the  period! — that  I  cannot  surround 
my  divinity  with  a  guard  of  honor  more 
worthily  arrayed ! 

Thus,  of  all  my  little  piebald  puppets 
the  one  I  value  the  most  is  my  pretty 
woman.  I  am  as  fond  of  her  as  Leech 
was  of  his  ;  of  whom,  by-the-way,  she  is 
the  granddaughter !  This  is  not  artistic 
vanity ;  it  is  pure  paternal  affection,  and 
by  no  means  prevents  me  from  seeing 
her  faults  ;  it  only  prevents  me  from 
seeing  them  as  clearly  as  you  do  ! 

Please  be  not  very  severe  on  her,  for 
her  grandmother's  sake.  Words  fail  me 
to  express  how  much  I  loved  her  grand- 
mother, who  wore  a  cricket -cap  and 
broke  Aunt  Sally's  nose  seven  times. 

Will  my  pretty  woman  ever  be  all  I 
wish  her  to  be  ?  All  she  ought  to  be  ? 
I  fear  not ! 

84 


FELINE    AMENITIES 

"I  wish  you  hadn't  asked  Captain  Wareham,  Lizzie.     Horrid  man!     I 
can't  bear  him  !" 

"Dear  me,  Charlotte — isn't  the  World  big  enough  for  you  both?" 
"Yes;   but  your  little  Dining-room  isn't  I"— Punch,  February  16,  1889. 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

On  the  mantel-piece  in  my  studio  at 
home  there  stands  a  certain  lady.  She 
is  but  lightly  clad,  and  what  simple  gar- 
ment she  wears  is  not  in  the  fashion  of 
our  day.  How  well  I  know  her !  Al- 
most thoroughly  by  this  time — for  she 
has  been  the  silent  companion  of  my 
work  for  thirty  years!  She  has  lost 
both  her  arms  and  one  of  her  feet, 
which  I  deplore ;  and  also  the  tip  of  her 
nose,  but  that  has  been  made  good ! 

She  is  only  three  feet  high,  or  there- 
abouts, and  quite  two  thousand  years 
old,  or  more ;  but  she  is  ever  young — 

"Age  cannot  wither  her,  nor  custom  stale 
Her  infinite  variety !" — 

and  a  very  giantess  in  beauty.  For  she 
is  a  reduction  in  plaster  of  the  famous 
statue  of  the  Louvre. 

They  call  her  the  Venus  of  Milo,  or 
Melos !     It  is  a  calumny — a  libel.     She 
85 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

is  no  Venus,  except  in  good  looks ;  and 
if  she  errs  at  all,  it  is  on  the  side  of  aus- 
terity. She  is  not  only  pootiness,  but 
wirtue  incarnate  (if  one  can  be  incarnate 
in  marble),  from  the  crown  of  her  lovely 
head  to  the  sole  of  her  remaining  foot — 
a  very  beautiful  foot,  though  by  no  means 
a  small  one — it  has  never  worn  a  high- 
heel  shoe ! 

Like  all  the  best  of  its  kind,  and  its 
kind  the  best,  she  never  sates  nor  palls, 
and  the  more  I  look  at  her  the  more  I 
see  to  love  and  worship — and,  alas,  the 
more  dissatisfied  I  feel — not  indeed  with 
the  living  beauty,  ripe  and  real,  that  I 
see  about  and  around — mere  life  is  such 
a  beauty  in  itself  that  no  stone  ideal 
can  ever  hope  to  match  it !  But  dissatis- 
fied with  the  means  at  my  command  to 
do  the  living  beauty  justice — a  little  bit 
of  paper,  a  steel  pen,  and  a  bottle  of  ink 
— and,  alas,  fingers  and  an  eye  less  skilled 

86 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

than  they  would  have  been  if  I  had  gone 
straight  to  a  school  of  art  instead  of  a 
laboratory  for  chemistry ! 

And  now  for  social  pictorial  satire  con- 
sidered as  a  fine  art. 

They  who  have  practised  it  hither- 
to, from  Hogarth  downward,  have  not 
been  many — you  can  count  their  names 
on  your  fingers !  And  the  wide  popular- 
ity they  have  won  may  be  due  as  much 
to  their  scarcity  as  to  the  interest  we  all 
take  in  having  the  mirror  held  up  to  our- 
selves— to  the  malicious  pleasure  we  all 
feel  at  seeing  our  neighbors  held  up  to 
gentle  ridicule  or  well  -  merited  reproof ; 
most  of  all,  perhaps,  to  the  realistic  charm 
that  lies  in  all  true  representation  of  the 
social  aspects  with  which  we  are  most 
familiar,  ugly  as  these  are  often  apt  to 
be,  with  our  chimney-pot  hats  and  trou- 
sers, that  unfit  us,  it  seems,  for  serious 
and  elaborate  pictorial  treatment  at  the 
87 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

hands  of  the  foremost  painters  of  our 
own  times — except  when  we  sit  to  them 
for  our  portraits ;  then  they  have  willy- 
nilly  to  make  the  best  of  us,  just  as 
we  are! 

The  plays  and  novels  that  succeed 
the  most  are  those  which  treat  of  the 
life  of  our  own  day ;  not  so  the  costly 
pictures  we  hang  upon  our  walls.  We 
do  not  care  to  have  continually  before 
our  eyes  elaborate  representations  of 
the  life  we  lead  every  day  and  all  day 
long;  we  like  best  that  which  rather 
takes  us  out  of  it — romantic  or  graceful 
episodes  of  another  time  or  clime,  when 
men  wore  prettier  clothes  than  they  do 
now — well-imagined,  well-painted  scenes 
from  classic  lore — historical  subjects — 
subjects  selected  from  our  splendid 
literature  and  what  not ;  or,  if  we  want 
modern  subjects,  we  prefer  scenes  chosen 
from  a  humble  sphere,  which  is  not 
88 


^l    so    ™    l 

^  a  *  * 

5  5  3  ~ 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

that  of  those  who  can  afford  to  buy 
pictures  —  the  toilers  of  the  earth  — 
the  toilers  of  the  sea — pathetic  scenes 
from  the  inexhaustible  annals  of  the 
poor;  or  else,  again,  landscapes  and 
seascapes — things  that  bring  a  whiff  of 
nature  into  our  feverish  and  artificial 
existence  —  that  are  in  direct  contrast 
to  it. 

And  even  with  these  beautiful  things, 
how  often  the  charm  wears  away  with 
the  novelty  of  possession  !  How  often 
and  how  soon  the  lovely  picture,  like  its 
frame,  becomes  just  as  a  piece  of  wall- 
furniture,  in  which  we  take  a  pride,  cer- 
tainly, and  which  we  should  certainly 
miss  if  it  were  taken  away — but  which 
we  grow  to  look  at  with  the  pathetic 
indifference  of  habit  —  if  not,  indeed, 
with  aversion  ! 

Chairs  and  tables  minister  to  our 
physical  comforts,  and  we  cannot  do 
89 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

without  them.  But  pictures  have  not 
this  practical  hold  upon  us;  the  sense 
to  which  they  appeal  is  not  always  on 
the  alert ;  yet  there  they  are  hanging 
on  the  wall,  morning,  noon,  and  night, 
unchanged,  unchangeable  —  the  same 
arrested  movement — the  same  expres- 
sion of  face — the  same  seas  and  trees 
and  moors  and  forests  and  rivers  and 
mountains — the  very  waves  are  as  eter- 
nal as  the  hills ! 

Music  will  leave  off  when  it  is  not 
wanted — at  least  it  ought  to !  The  book 
is  shut,  the  newspaper  thrown  aside. 
Not  so  the  beautiful  picture ;  it  is  like  a 
perennial  nosegay,  forever  exhaling  its 
perfume  for  noses  that  have  long  ceased 
to  smell  it ! 

But  little  pictures  in  black  and  white, 
of  little  every-day  people  like  ourselves, 
by  some  great  little  artist  who  knows 
life  well  and  has  the  means  at  his  corn- 
go 


>^ 


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SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

mand  to  express  his  knowledge  in  this 
easy,  simple  manner,  can  be  taken  up 
and  thrown  down  like  the  book  or  news- 
paper. They  are  even  easier  to  read 
and  understand.  They  are  within  the 
reach  of  the  meanest  capacity,  the  hum- 
blest education,  the  most  slender  purse. 
They  come  to  us  weekly,  let  us  say,  in 
cheap  periodicals.  They  are  preserved 
and  bound  up  in  volumes,  to  be  taken 
down  and  looked  at  when  so  disposed. 
The  child  grows  to  love  them  before  he 
knows  how  to  read  ;  fifty  years  hence  he 
will  love  them  still,  if  only  for  the  pleas- 
ure they  gave  him  as  a  child.  He  will 
soon  know  them  by  heart,  and  yet  go 
to  them  again  and  again ;  and  if  they 
are  good,  he  will  always  find  new  beau- 
ties and  added  interest  as  he  himself 
grows  in  taste  and  culture  ;  and  how 
much  of  that  taste  and  culture  he  will 
owe  to  them,  who  can  say  ? 
91 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

Nothing  sticks  so  well  in  the  young 
mind  as  a  little  picture  one  can  hold 
close  to  the  eyes  like  a  book — not  even 
a  song  or  poem — for  in  the  case  of  most 
young  people  the  memory  of  the  eye  is 
better  than  that  of  the  ear — its  power  of 
assimilating  more  rapid  and  more  keen. 
And  then  there  is  the  immense  variety, 
the  number! 

Our  pictorial  satirist  taking  the  great- 
est pains,  doing  his  very  best,  can  pro- 
duce, say,  a  hundred  of  these  little  pict- 
ures in  a  twelvemonth,  while  his  elder 
brother  of  the  brush  bestows  an  equal 
labor  and  an  equal  time  on  one  impor- 
tant canvas,  which  will  take  another 
twelvemonth  to  engrave,  perhaps,  for 
the  benefit  of  those  fortunate  enough  to 
be  able  to  afford  the  costly  engraving 
of  that  one  priceless  work  of  art,  which 
only  one  millionaire  can  possess  at  a 
time.  Happy  millionaire ;  happy  painter 
92 


TJ  H  V  H 

C    B    G    B 

-   £   2   n 

r  S  r  S 

M      .  B 
I  50      -SO 

•fl'.H'. 


_  o 
S  3 
<  S 


8      H 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

—just  as  likely  as  not  to  become  a  mill- 
ionaire himself !  And  this  elder  broth- 
er of  the  brush  will  be  the  first  to  ac- 
knowledge his  little  brother's  greatness 
— if  the  little  brother's  work  be  well 
done.  You  should  hear  how  the  first 
painters  of  our  time,  here  and  abroad, 
express  themselves  about  Charles 
Keene !  They  do  not  speak  of  him  as 
a  little  brother,  I  tell  you,  but  a  very 
big  brother  indeed. 

Thackeray,  for  me,  and  many  others, 
the  greatest  novelist,  satirist,  humorist 
of  our  time,  where  so  many  have  been 
great,  is  said  to  have  at  the  beginning 
of  his  career  wished  to  illustrate  the 
books  of  others  —  Charles  Dickens's,  I 
believe,  for  one.  Fortunately,  perhaps, 
for  us  and  for  him,  and  perhaps  for 
Dickens,  he  did  not  succeed  ;  he  lived  to 
write  books  of  his  own,  and  to  illus- 
trate them  himself ;  and  it  is  generally 
93 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

admitted  that  his  illustrations,  clever 
as  they  are,  were  not  up  to  the  mark 
of  his  writings. 

It  was  not  his  natural  mode  of  expres- 
sion—  and  I  doubt  if  any  amount  of 
training  and  study  would  have  made  it 
a  successful  mode ;  the  love  of  the  thing 
does  not  necessarily  carry  the  power  to 
do  it.  That  he  loved  it  he  has  shown 
us  in  many  ways,  and  also  that  he  was 
always  practising  it.  Most  of  my  hear- 
ers will  remember  his  beautiful  ballad  of 
"  The  Pen  and  the  Album  "— 

"  I  am  my  master's  faithful  old  gold  pen. 
I've  served  him  three  long  years,  and  drawn 

since  then 
Thousands     of    funny   women    and     droll 

men."  .  .  . 

Now  conceive  —  it  is  not  an  impossible 

conception — that  the  marvellous  gift  of 

expression   that  he   was  to  possess  in 

94 


REFINEMENTS   OF  MODERN   SPEECH 
(ScEXE — A  Drawing-room  in  "Passionate  Brompten."} 
FAIR  ./ESTHETIC  (suddenly,  and  in  deepest  tones  to  Smith, 

•who  lias  just  been  introduced  to  take  her  in  to  Dinner).   "Are 

you  Intense  ?" — Punch,  June  14,  1879. 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

words  had  been  changed  by  some  fairy 
at  his  birth  into  an  equal  gift  of  expres- 
sion by  means  of  the  pencil,  and  that  he 
had  cultivated  the  gift  as  assiduously  as 
he  cultivated  the  other,  and  finally  that 
he  had  exercised  it  as  sedulously  through 
life,  bestowing  on  innumerable  little  pict- 
ures in  black  and  white  all  the  wit  and 
wisdom,  the  wide  culture,  the  deep 
knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  the  hu- 
man heart,  all  the  satire,  the  tenderness, 
the  drollery,  and  last,  but  not  least,  that 
incomparable  perfection  of  style  that 
we  find  in  all  or  most  that  he  has  writ- 
ten— what  a  pictorial  record  that  would 
be! 

Think  of  it  —  a  collection  of  little 
wood -cuts  or  etchings,  with  each  its 
appropriate  legend  —  a  series  of  small 
pictures  equal  in  volume  and  in  value 
to  the  whole  of  Thackeray's  literary 
work !  Think  of  the  laughter  and  the 
95 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

tears  from  old  and  young,  rich  and  poor, 
and  from  the  thousands  who  have  not 
the  intelligence  or  the  culture  to  ap- 
preciate great  books,  or  lack  time  or 
inclination  to  read  them. 

All  there  was  in  the  heart  and  mind 
of  Thackeray,  expressed  through  a  me- 
dium so  simple  and  direct  that  even 
a  child  could  be  made  to  feel  it,  or  a 
chimney-sweep!  For  where  need  we 
draw  the  line?  We  are  only  pretending. 

Now  I  am  quite  content  with^Thack- 
eray  as  he  is — a  writer  of  books,  whose 
loss  to  literature  could  not  be  compen- 
sated by  any.  gain  to  the  gentle  art  of 
drawing  little  figures  in  black  and  white 
— "thousands  of  funny  women  and  droll 
men."  All  I  wish  to  point  out,  in  these 
days  when  drawing  is  pressed  into  the 
service  of  daily  journalism,  and  with 
such  success  that  there  will  soon  be  as 
many  journalists  with  the  pencil  as  with 
96 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

the  pen,  is  this,  that  the  career  of  the 
future  social  pictorial  satirist  is  full  of 
splendid  possibilities  undreamed-of  yet. 

It  is  a  kind  of  hybrid  profession  still 
in  its  infancy  —  hardly  recognized  as  a 
profession  at  all  —  something  half-way 
between  literature  and  art — yet  poten- 
tially combining  all  that  is  best  and  most 
essential  in  both,  and  appealing  as  effec- 
tively as  either  to  some  of  our  strongest 
needs  and  most  natural  instincts. 

It  has  no  school  as  yet ;  its  methods 
are  tentative,  and  its  few  masters  have 
been  pretty  much  self-taught.  But  I 
think  that  a  method  and  a  school  will 
evolve  themselves  by  degrees — are  per- 
haps evolving  themselves  already. 

The  quality  of  black  and  white  illus- 
trations of  modern  life  is  immeasurably 
higher  than  it  was  thirty  or  forty  years 
ago — its  average  and  artistic  quality — 
and  it  is  getting  higher  day  by  day. 
G  97 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

The  number  of  youths  who  can  draw 
beautifully  is  quite  appalling;  one  would 
think  they  had  learned  to  draw  be- 
fore learning  to  read  and  write.  Why 
shouldn't  they? 

Well,  all  we  want,  for  my  little  dream 
to  be  realized,  is  that  among  these  pre- 
cocious wielders  of  the  pencil  there 
should  arise  here  a  Dickens,  there  a 
Thackeray,  there  a  George  Eliot  or  an 
Anthony  Trollope,  who,  finding  quite 
early  in  life  that  he  can  draw  as  easily 
as  other  men  can  spell,  that  he  can  ex- 
press himself,  and  all  that  he  hears  and 
sees  and  feels,  more  easily,  more  com. 
pletely,  in  that  way  than  in  any  other, 
will  devote  himself  heart  and  soul  to 
that  form  of  expression — as  I  and  oth- 
ers have  tried  to  do  —  but  with  advan- 
tages of  nature,  circumstances,  and  edu- 
cation that  have  been  denied  to  us ! 

Hogarth  seems  to  have  come  nearer 


S  O 


^      2,  H 

f»    X    r*.  ?T 


P  M 
—  H 
„  "< 


I         5. 

<•  1!±. 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

to  this  ideal  pictorial  satirist  than  any 
of  his  successors  in  Punch  and  elsewhere. 
For  he  was  not  merely  a  light  humorist 
and  a  genial  caricaturist ;  he  dealt  also 
in  pathos  and  terror,  in  tragic  passion 
and  sorrow  and  crime;  he  often  strikes 
chords  of  too  deep  a  tone  for  the  pages 
of  a  comic  periodical. 

But  the  extent  of  his  productiveness 
was  limited  by  the  method  of  his  pro- 
duction ;  he  was  a  great  painter  in  oils, 
and  each  of  his  life  scenes  is  an  impor- 
tant and  elaborate  picture,  which,  more- 
over, he  engraved  himself  at  great  cost 
of  time  and  labor,  after  the  original  time 
and  labor  spent  in  painting  it.  It  is  by 
these  engravings,  far  more  than  by  his 
pictures,  that  he  is  so  widely  known. 

It  is  quite  possible  to  conceive  a  little 

sketchy  wood-cut  no  larger  than  a  cut 

in  Punch,  and  drawn  by  a  master  like 

Charles   Keene,  or  the   German  Adolf 

99 


SOCIAL    PICTORIAL    SATIRE 

Mensel,  giving  us  all  the  essence  of  any 
picture  by  Hogarth  even  more  effective- 
ly, more  agreeably,  than  any  of  Ho- 
garth's most  finished  engravings.  And 
if  this  had  been  Hogarth's  method  of 
work,  instead  of  some  fifty  or  sixty  of 
those  immortal  designs  we  should  have 
had  some  five  or  six  thousand!  Almost 
a  library ! 

So  much  for  the  great  pictorial  satir- 
ist of  the  future — of  the  near  future,  let 
us  hope — that  I  have  been  trying  to 
evolve  from  my  inner  consciousness. 
May  some  of  us  live  to  see  him ! 


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